L:aura -- there's no law that says all lines have to scan the same way.
The danger, though, is that a reader may not see it as a deliberate
choice, and then it does sound clumsy.
Every time you commit a word or a phrase to paper, you are making a
promise to the reader. You can either keep that promise, or break it. If
you keep all your promises, you'll be a very boring writer -- so that's
certainly not the way to go.
Eliot promises the reader, in the first two lines of "Prufrock," a
romantic, pastoral image, and then he breaks that promise by comparing
the evening to a patient etherized on a table. The effect is startling
and exhilarating.
When you write a poem that's two medium-length stanzas and a couplet,
the reader takes it in with the eye, and expects he's going to be
reading a sonnet. When instead, he gets two seven-line stanzas followed
by a couplet, and a rhyme scheme that sounds sonnet-like but isn't, he
realizes that the sonnet-promise has been broken, and it's a delight.
When you start by writing a few lines in iambic pentameter, and then
switch meters, that's another broken promise, and maybe it's another one
that you want. But it comes with a little danger. With the 16 lines,
there's a good chance that the average reader (me) will say, "Hey, what
a neat switch on the sonnet form she thought up!" When, in a sort of
irregular pattern, you break the iambic pentameter progress, the reader
may say, "Hey, that's neat! I can tell she meant to do it." But the
reader may also say, "Uh-oh, she counted that out wrong." And then it
takes something away from the reading experience, rather than adding
something.
Laura Heidy wrote:
>
> In a message dated 5/27/2007 12:21:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> A little problem with the scansion -- line 4 has one foot too many. This
> could be fixed by leaving out the first foot -- "from home" -- which may
> be better anyway because that's a hard enjambment to get around as it
> stands.
>
> One foot too many in line 5 -- you might try to tighten it up in the
> middle -- bullets knowing your name is sort of a war movie cliche. That
> way you could keep the rhyme word at the end.
>
> One too many in line 7 -- unless you're trying to alternate pentameter
> and hexameter? But it's not really alternate lines, and that would be a
> lot of adjustment to ask of a sonnet-reader. You could cut out "city,"
> but it's probably the best word in the line. Maybe "only"? I think you
> cover the meaning with "be /the /star."
>
> Stanza 2, line 5 -- cutting out "and try" would solve it.
> Line 6 is a foot short.
>
> Line 7 is actually two feet too long.
>
> The second line of the concluding couplet is a foot short.
>
>
> I kinda agree that the language is a little archaic in spots. "Or shall
> I choose" doesn't quite fit a contemporary poem, and "Maybe I'll choose"
> would scan just as well.
>
> I very much like the rhyme scheme of the second stanza -- ABABCDC -- and
> as a result, I miss the "A" rhyme in the first stanza. Also, and this
> may be gilding the lily, did you consider making the two "D" lines rhyme
> across stanzas?
>
> Laura Heidy wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Ill Fated
>>
>> So shall I choose to die as young men die -
>> inside the car when death meets dash and grins
>> his rictus grin - or crouched in sand too far
>> from home and suddenly aware that no one wins -
>> or on a street where bullets know my name and why
>> I'm there and for one brief and brilliant flash
>> I'll be the only star that lights the city sky?
>>
>> Or shall I choose to live as old man live -
>> with palsied limbs and shuffling gait - with eyes
>> grown dim and ears grown deaf - my mind a sieve
>> that cannot hold unto the truths or lies
>> which I've held dear no matter how I try and try -
>> With skipping heart and stiffened lungs
>> that even drugs will not quite manage to disguise?
>>
>> I fear free will is just the final ruse.
>> There is no choice nor shall I choose.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ************************************** See what's free at
>>
> http://www.aol.com.
>
>>
>>
>
>
--
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
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