I didn't have to be taught to be boring. It just came naturally to me.
Roger Day wrote:
> 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/
>>
>
>
--
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
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