Listen to some Shakespeare. Actors don't speak in meter. They
don't even speak in lines. They speak in complete and incomplete
sentences, just like us'n's. Meter's for prosodists and taxicabs.
Hal
"I loathe writing. On the other hand I'm a great
believer in money. Often when I couldn't pay the
grocery bill, Providence intervened and I don't
mean my natal city, Providence, which can be
counted on for nothing."
--S. J. Perelman
Halvard Johnson
================
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http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
On Oct 15, 2007, at 4:07 PM, RUPERT MALLIN wrote:
> Good argument!
>
> You get a bit hot-foot me thinks. Where did this island's iambic
> pentameters
> come from? The ten-foot line cannot be directly translated from
> latin as a
> meter, so where from? To speak in iambic feet is an utter
> construct. Whose
> construct? Trochee meter. Can you honestly speak in that today? Or
> is poetry
> not for speaking?
>
> The late Paul Foot gave a marvellous series of Radio 3 talks about
> poetry in
> the late 1980s - Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley and then entering
> into the
> Modern. His argument was, rightly in one way, that the metric form
> roots
> poets to the earth (to form, tradition, history) and that thereby
> lightning
> bolts between heavens, earth and struggling ignite us in thought,
> imagination and action by way of this fulcrum.
>
> Problem is, what of those who write 'out of the air' - now and
> traditionally? For Foot and many an academic this is heresay: "art
> should speak in its own language first" was his mantra. Yes. But
> what language?
>
> My favourite British Poets of all are Blake and Shelley. Would or
> could I ever learn how to write using their forms? Give over! Every
> iamb of their works were fighting the very establishment that
> forged them - man and meter.
>
> Brilliantly today the huge passage of migrants and asylum seekers
> are working their way across the world, into the very Imperialist
> countries that enslaved them like the UK, bringing new rhythms and
> traditions of voice. Even in Norfolk I'm working via the county's
> Black History Month celebrations. Sonnets? I'm learning rhythms
> from 400 years ago that are so pressing and present today! Not an
> iamb there - unless an academic later makes this life his/her
> linguistic fossil.
>
> Best Rupert
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Halvard Johnson"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 4:02 PM
> Subject: Re: Blinkin Sonnets!
>
>
>> And why not? I ask you.
>>
>> Hal
>>
>> "I would horsewhip you if I had a horse."
>> --Groucho Marx
>>
>> Halvard Johnson
>> ================
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>>
>>
>> On Oct 15, 2007, at 8:05 AM, kasper salonen wrote:
>>
>>> believe you? just like that?
>>>
>>> KS
>>>
>>> On 15/10/2007, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>> Believe me when I say I take that sonnet tradition
>>>> into account.
>>>>
>>>> Hal
>>>>
>>>> "Disorder is merely the order you
>>>> are not looking for."
>>>> --Henri Bergson
>>>>
>>>> Halvard Johnson
>>>> ================
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
>>>> http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>>>> http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>>>> http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 14, 2007, at 5:11 PM, Joanna Boulter wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Given that we write either into or against a tradition, I don't
>>>>> see
>>>>> how we can avoid taking it into account.
>>>>>
>>>>> joanna
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Day"
>>>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 10:04 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: Blinkin Sonnets!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Don't you think about the tradition you want to write into? I
>>>>>> certainly do, if I want to do such a thing. Maybe you consider
>>>>>> such
>>>>>> thinking frivolous.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Roger
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 10/14/07, Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>>> In one hundred years we've gone from a poetic puritanism which
>>>>>>> condemned anything not traditional as frivolous to a poetic
>>>>>>> puritanism
>>>>>>> which condemns anything traditional as frivolous. Like
>>>>>>> some French
>>>>>>> guy once said, the more different something gets, the more
>>>>>>> it's the
>>>>>>> same damn thing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> ===================================
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/joncpoetics/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ===================================
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>>>>>> "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury
>>>>>> their sons."
>>>>>> Roman Proverb
>>>>
>>
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