I wonder whether Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Dryden, Yeats, etc. were also
trapped in form. Not meaning to dispute that good and bad poetry can be
written in form or not in form. It's just the very concept of "trapped in
form" that seems strange to me.
Couldn't you just as easily say "trapped in the English alphabet"?
--Uche
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Douglas Barbour
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Ah yes, Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics; I remember
> it well. It was useful once upon a time for students who wanted to learn
> something about the trad forms, & Turco certainly covered the lot.
>
> His own poetry seemed (& seems, to me) trapped in them, though.
>
> It's always that mater of taste I guess: whose poetry would I rather read?
> Olson's say, or Turco's? Or, my choices against his: Levertov, Webb,
> Adamson, Bunting, to name a very few. Note that all of them can utilize trad
> forms if they want to, but all chose t open form in a variety of
> extraordinary ways.
>
> Doug
>
> On 22-Jun-10, at 12:39 AM, Uche Ogbuji wrote:
>
> Forgot to also mention that Lewis Turco is the featured poet on The
>> Nervous
>> Breakdown this week. It includes a poem "John" and a self-interview, both
>> excellent. The self-interview offers much-needed perspective and history
>> for one of the less heralded branches of modern poetry.The poem, "John,"
>> is
>> a contemplation of the utterly grand, and the infinitesimal.
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ <http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Edbarbour/>
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>
> because I want to die
>
> writing Haiku
>
> or, better,
>
> long lines, clean and syllabic as knotted bamboo. Yes!
>
> Phyllis Webb
>
--
Uche Ogbuji http://uche.ogbuji.net
Weblog: http://copia.ogbuji.net
Poetry ed @TNB: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/author/uogbuji/
Founding Partner, Zepheira http://zepheira.com
Linked-in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ucheogbuji
Articles: http://uche.ogbuji.net/tech/publications/
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/uche
Twitter: http://twitter.com/uogbuji
http://www.google.com/profiles/uche.ogbuji
|