Dear list members,
I was reading the start of Craig Raine's 'History: The Movie' last night. He
chooses a three line verse to help propel the thing over its length. He's
quite tight with it, but I got to thinking bout why it sometimes bothers me
when i see it elsewhere in contemporary poetry.
When I've taught US teenagers creative writing in the past, the first thing
they'll do is come out with screeds of 3 line verses. I thought they might
have seen it as a way of making blank - or formless, rather - verse look more
formal, a kind of half way between libre and 'regular' - looks like terza rima,
but it ain't rima and it ain't really anything. One sees various verses in the
mags and on the net which look similar - that loose-but-looking-bound
structure, with little discernable indication that the poetry benefits from the
breaks between lines and verses where they come.
I could just be displaying my ignorance, but even if so, I'd be keen to hear
where you think this comes from. I think it might have something to do with
word processing (now you can arrange and rearrange till you find an
authoritative looking shape for your words), it might be a case of early bad
habits being allowed to continue in the taught encouragement of creativity over
form, it might be an American influence, possibly from people reading or
misreading too much WC Williams, possibly as a mutation from the long breath
line (no animus on that intended - I don't presume 'influence' to be identical
with 'cultural imperialism'!)...?
It's not just a gripe - when I've written something and thought 'This thing
does not cohere!', I've had the little flash of temptation to bung it all into
some sort of regular-ish looking packaging, and those three liners make you
look like you know what you doing... is any of this recognisable to anyone,
either in their own choices-to-resist or in other poetry they've seen knocking
about, and if so, why do they think there is this infernal fake-versiness
cropping up?
Sam
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