Thread: Line-Length
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Unread 04-21-2001, 06:11 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Dimeter, and it's not for everyone. I wanted to add, Mac, that although I wanted to write in short lines from age 18 on, I rigorously confined myself to pentameter between 25 and 30, figuring I had to get our great measure down first. The long line gives you space to learn rhyming and room to develop a a real sense of lineation, a sense that corresponds with phrase, with breath and heartbeat. That done, though, I wanted to sound like nobody I'd ever read. For all the influence of Frost and Yeats and Hardy, no one would mistake Hunting Time, for instance, as the work of anybody but Murphy.
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