Dude, you could at least ask her *why she switched metre. Who knows?
Laura may have an answer mapped out.
Ah, that's how people are taught to be boring. Always wondered.
Roger
On 5/27/07, TheOldMole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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/
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde
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