It looks like what you are saying here is that poems have an “innate” rhythm growing out of a poem’s formal qualities, and that these qualities can’t be separated from the poem, whereas a song lyric has no such innate qualities, and therefore any rhythmic elements that can be derived from a song lyric are more to do with the way a particular singer (like Dylan) sings the song etc.
I agree with this, but my interest in trying to find a distinction between a song and a poem is more to do with aesthetics than the actual formal aspects of how a poem or song lyric are plotted out on the page etc. What is it that aesthetically differentiates the two? And how does the way meaning is derived from one differ in the way it is derived from the other? Assuming meaning is derived differently at all. I don’t think it is.
It is these sorts of questions I’m looking for answers to, rather than the formal differences between poems and songs.
-----------------Original Message---------------
Jamie McKendrick wrote:
At least there's a sliver of agreement! Ok you've agreed with something
quite significant even if, for you, the rhythm of poems is a matter of
little importance. For the poem that's a matter of crucial importance, it's
often the very hinge of a meaning disclosed or missed. Singers are quite
happy to stress syllables, say, a monosyllabic preposition, that would make
absolutely no sense in speech and would make nonsense of a poem read, and no
one listening to the song would mind a bit. Sometimes, as in Dylan, this
departure from speech rhythm is a matter of enjoyment - I can't think of an
example offhand but I know they exist as I've recalled thinking about it.
Here you don't need to repeat your argument about there being bad poems and
better song lyrics, no one who wasn't off their trolley would deny that -
you'd have to look far and wide for a better poem than Ariel's song in the
Tempest "Full fathom five..." (though it's telling that it was written by a
poet, whoever we think that poet was). What I'm drawing attention to is not
an 'exact' difference or a 'definition' but a direction or a tendency
distinguishing the two arts of poems and songwriting.
Jamie
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