Wonderful stew of metaphors in that second paragraph, Rupert!
I'm hoping Foot's middle name was Hot, rather than Iambic,
Dactylic or cetera.
Hal
". . . the old is too old and the new is too old."
--Gertrude Stein
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 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
>>>>
>>
|