Once upon a time, I thought that death was the final curtain on all
drafts but I was listening to a Radio 3 program on Shakespeare and
music and I discovered that even this great demi-god of english
poetry was re-drafted by successive generations. Milton, IIRC from the
program, thought that S was "unpolished." Others added and subtracted
whole passages and characters. The rot sets in later with the sanctity
of the text, and all that tosh. A living breathing art requires all
drafts to be provisional. Even ones considered "perfect" by their
authors.
Roger
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:44 AM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thinking more about this, Nathan, I would suggest that, although one
> understands the feeling behind the quote, there possibly are some poems,
> probably all quite short ones, which are, for want of a better word,
> 'finished' because one could not change any element of them without spoiling
> their effect.
>
>
> On 27/03/2008, Nathan Hondros <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
>
>
> > I might be wrong and can't find a reference now but it think it was Auden
> > who said poems aren't finished, just abandoned.
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Halvard Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Hmm, I've always thought anything one writes to
> > > be a draft--somewhere between and including the first
> > > draft and the final one. (To the extent that anything is final,
> > > of course.)
> > >
> > > But then sometimes a cold beer is a draft too.
> > >
> > > Hal
> > >
> > > "We are the zanies of sorrow."
> > > --Oscar Wilde
> > >
> > > Halvard Johnson
> > > ================
> > > [log in to unmask]
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html
> > > http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
> > > http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
> > > http://www.hamiltonstone.org
> > > http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/vidalocabooks.html
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mar 26, 2008, at 10:25 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Martin
> > > >
> > > > well I wrote it yesterday so I think it qualifies as a draft.
> > > >
> > > > I'm not wild about the first line, it could get absorbed into an
> > > > eventual
> > > > (final) title. Perhaps. I do sometimes write "social historical"
> > > > poetry but
> > > > it's not easy to incorporate the necessity of facts within the
> > > > requirements
> > > > of poetry. Such facts tend to be lumpy and arrhythmical. Like
> > > > handling great
> > > > globs of wet sticky clay.
> > > >
> > > > best
> > > >
> > > > Dave
> > > >
> > > > On 26/03/2008, Martin Dolan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Hi Dave
> > > >>
> > > >> Not the sort of thing idea, but if this is a draft, it's a good one.
> > > >>
> > > >> I like the way you contrast the specificity of the 1848 events with
> > > >> the
> > > >> vagueness/fadedness of the link to you. The interplay of images
> > > >> (such as
> > > >> between the fuse of the Manifesto and the firedamp) works well for me
> > > >> (had to check up on Kossuth, though).
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm not sure about the first line - even if it's necessary in
> > > >> light of
> > > >> the title. Also not sure about co-patrilineal: trying to compress to
> > > >> much into the line, maybe?
> > > >>
> > > >> If you've got more like these, I'd like to see them.
> > > >>
> > > >> Regards
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> Martin
> > > >>
> > > >>> Circum circa
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Circa a European Year of Revolutions,
> > > >>> of Kossuth and Cavour and Louis Napoleon's Eighteenth Brumaire,
> > > >>> when Chartists massed, faintly tinted in life colours,
> > > >>> in the first known crowd photograph
> > > >>> and a grim economist fused a hissing manifesto,
> > > >>> one man found everything to lose,
> > > >>> one man preserved
> > > >>>
> > > >>> by the Heanor and District Historical Society,
> > > >>> one man who might have been
> > > >>> co-patrilineal
> > > >>>
> > > >>> to this one, scribbling here, a bone trace of age unstated,
> > > >>> Joseph of my surname, asphyxiated (circa)
> > > >>> 1848 at a firedamp lit hard seam at Loscoe pit.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > David Bircumshaw
> > > > Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> > > > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> > > > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> > > > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
The Go-Betweens
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