Dear Janet,
You wrote:
"Seems to me rhyme went away when people decided poetry wasn't for reciting
any more.
Notice how with hip-hop lyrics and some performance poetry, rhyme is back."
I don't think rhyme ever went away completely. Most people sing and listen
to poetry regularly, as song-lyrics (and I'm not talking about hip-hop and
rap--which strikes me as mostly dreadful doggerel set to a strong beat).
It's strange how metred rhymed verse seems so out of favour at present, yet
when people are asked about
their favourite poems, guess what?
Personally, I don't care if a poem is formal or free, rhymed or unrhymed, so
long as it's a good poem.
Kind regards, Margaret
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet Jackson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 5:22 AM
Subject: Resurrecting the naked Muse?
> Jon C says, and Stephen V appears not to "get":
>
> > I think that one of the major obstacles to our understanding early
> > ancient Greek poets' conception of their art is that we can't get rid
> > of the decadent Hellenistic prettification of the Muses into
> > wall-calendar art motifs. For earlier poets (this is not something I
> > can or care to prove,) the Muse was a religious power as real and as
> > powerful as the Holy Spirit was to a medieval Christian devotional
> > poet. When Homer asked the sanction of the Muse for his art, or
> > Sappho forbid mourning for her because tears should have no place in a
> > house that is a temple of the Muse, they were not engaging in literary
> > artifice, and to the extent we've been conditioned to assume that they
> > were, we're barred from their consciousness.
>
> What I think:
>
> The spiritual power has not gone away.
> It's there in Stephen Vincent's poetry, at least for me.
> The "temple" that occurs in some of my poetry might be considered
> a temple of this Muse.
>
> But let's not resurrect the reification, the personification.
> Because my Muse sure ain't some seminaked woman.
>
> By way of a poem:
>
> Mind
> Muse
> Music
> Move
>
> Janet
>
> PS I agree with Jon about the mnemonic function of metre, rhyme etc.
> Seems to me rhyme went away when people decided poetry wasn't
> for reciting any more.
> Notice how with hip-hop lyrics and some performance poetry, rhyme is back.
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> Poems at Proximity:
> http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
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