Thread: Line-Length
View Single Post
  #2  
Unread 04-18-2001, 08:01 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
Lariat Emeritus
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Fargo ND, USA
Posts: 13,816
Post

Mac, In the mid 70's I wrote long pentameter narratives about gay historical figures because I was too young to have a life of my own to write about. Wilbur chided me: "Just because you're addressing the themes of Constantine Cavafy doesn't excuse you from the task of sufficiently charging your language." I'd grown up a folk singer, so ballad came naturally. When I got into farming and hunting in a big way, I started to write trimeter, figuring that if my rhymes came every six syllables (or four in dimeter), my lines would be so musical they wouldn't "lack charge." Of course I still write pentameter (see The Cook Fire a few pages back in Metrical 1.) And I put trochees in the second foot of any length line when they work--which ain't often. Alan of course calls my meter Iambic Timeter and contrasts it to Tim Steele's Iambic penTimeter.
Reply With Quote