Having written a sequence of 14 line poems in the voice of another poet
in love I have to agree here. The tradition if utilized in various ways
can be modernized, I feel. But I've also seen some examples of rather
slavish copying that seem to sink back into a past quite clearly no
longer alive. There's the danger.
I liked the points Robin raised about sonnets & sonets....
Doug
On 16-Oct-07, at 4:26 AM, Joanna Boulter wrote:
> Roger, are you saying that to write in any "earlier" form, no matter
> how adventurously we push its boundaries, is outworn tradition time?
> Does this mean that we should only write in "modern" forms? And if so,
> can you justify this? Come on, man, surely tradition's only a sin if
> it's slavish, and this discussion would seem to indicate that this
> particular one is certainly not that.
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
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Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
and this is 'life' and we owe at least this much
contemplation to our western fact: to Rise,
Decline, Fall, to futility and larks,
to the bright crustaceans of the oversky.
Phyllis Webb
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