One of those stories told before was of one who wrote prose fictions
coming across me sitting in a dark, dimly lit corner counting syllables
on my fingers. Then he saw me write down a ten syllable line. What on
earth are you doing he asks in exasperated horror. Writing pentameters;
I reply. But you must do it by ear; he proclaims. No need to count. His
eyes bulge as I count out another ten syllables on my fingers, there
being ten fingers on both my hands, I should add, since I had not the
experience of an industrial accident which may have removed one or two.
As I counted out and wrote a third line in this way he was gasping for
breath. For fourteen lines, in all, I did write and by this time my
prose writer friend hovered on a thin line between life and death which
comes in the reading which must be done with an iambic five foot meter
and for variations a dactylic pentameter, regardless of where the
natural stresses make a claim to fall. Give them the garlands that
justly should deck out their weariness. And calmly sit and read Barthes
dead author.
> After so many 'outgoings' of reading others' poems, I find m'sel' 'coming
> in', or, rather, back to Shaksper, the 10-syllable line.
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