I didn't think it was too 'free', Doug. Haven't I been rigid in using abbaabbaefgefg rhymes and lines in iambic pentameter? Or are my pentameters not iambic? Or are my iambs not pentameters? I don't really know enough at that level.
Fair cop on the 'ises', I suppose but I just wanted to maintain a kind of vernacular in the argument. I tried 'Why does everything I want to do count/as a commitment?' for instance but the line turn seemed forced and it lost its feeling of pathetic insistence I thought. I have since tried just 'Why is everything I want to do/a commitment' which seems to address your beef but again, I seem to have lost some ... tone - is that what I mean?
Thanks, as usual for making me rethink what I am trying to do.
Bill
On 19/09/2013, at 12:27 AM, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Ha, but even in a sonnet,Bill, since it's already a bit 'free,' you could probably cut a few of the 'is's, especially in the first quatrain, out…?
>
> Retirement = trad? Or something…?
>
> Doug
> On 2013-09-18, at 2:16 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Free rigidity
>>
>> Why is it everything I want to do
>> is a 'commitment'? It's freedom you seek,
>> you say: blank spaces in the coming weeks.
>> It's not like I'm proposing a tattoo;
>> surely we can accept a barbecue.
>> It's not too long a drive to Pheasant Creek.
>> Distance? It may as well be Mozambique.
>> Openings, parties, movies, toodle-oo!
>> Retirement from work should open doors,
>> Invitations confirmed, no longer spurned.
>> Open-ended readiness is strange hell.
>> Whither spontaneity? always your
>> riposte, which only serves to make me squirm.
>> Can double lines once crossed re-parallel?
>>
>> bw
>> 18.09.13
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Something else is out there
> godamnit
>
> And I want to hear it
>
> C.D.Wright
>
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