Hi Kaspar
I was just puzzled, that's all. As a child, what attracted me to
poetry more than anything - probably heading straight on from Dr Seuss
- was the enchantment of inventive formal verse. One of the first
poems I learned by heart as a child (it's very short, after all) was
Tennyson's The Eagle. Great fun to say out loud with big arm gestures
("and like a THUNDERBOLT - he FALLS"). Of course I loved The Lady of
Shallot - if you twist my arm, I'll admit that I still do - hard to
beat lines like
Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror crack'd from side to side -
"The Curse has come upon me!" cried
The Lady of Shallot
(Later, after I'd repudiated Tennyson in a new hard mode of serious
poet, I read In Memoriam AHH. And that is seriously a great poem.) But
I guess I still have that love for that kind of language, the sheer
pleasure of the drama of it. I used to march along the treelined
paths in Northcote, taking my kids to school, declaiming Kubla Khan.
Also brilliant to say out loud. A bit embarrassing if anyone catches
you, though. One of the great pleasures of writing fantasy novels -
now I'm really bringing my dirty underwear out of the closet - is
being able to unashamedly play with all these old verse forms. And as
an aside, my ten year old learned, off his own bat, most of Hamlet's
soliloquy and will, to the point of annoyance, stand in the kitchen
quoting it. It's just about the pleasures of those words and rhythms
in your mouth.
But yes, modernity throws up different formalities, different kinds of
expressiveness, although it doesn't mean that rhyming or even formal
verse is out, or even that those old prosodies are miles away from
what many contemporary poets are doing. Walcott for example does
amazing rhymes. And what about great modernist poems like Hugh Selwyn
Mauberley? Or even the kind of highly stylised language someone like
Sarah Kane uses (like in her play 4:48 Psychosis)? There are strong
connections between Romantic poetry and some of the more interesting
contemporary British poets - I mean people like JH Prynne or Alan
Halsey. I guess I tend to see it all more as a continuum with lots of
interesting tensions in it.
All the best
Alison
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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