[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Jayne,

You deserve a separate response. Thanks for the careful reading you gave this. You obviously have the imagination to fit square pegs into round holes when you are entertained enough to do it. I couldn't ask for more.

Jim

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by R. Nemo Hill

What Carl says is important. Using rhyme in a didactic poem like this necessitates that one's argument be as crystal clear as the rhymes. In fact, trying to put one's abstract thoughts on a subject into rhyme is a great way to learn if one has any clear idea of what one wants to say. Most often, the argument melts into nothing, or it gets tangled up in impenetrable lexical knots. For me, both those things happen here. A lot of breath is expanded to say something negligible; while the constructions employed, when closely studied, are fruitlessly intricate. Alexander Pope made it look easy, but it is not. At their best, such lines can cut through verbiage with a revelation enhanced by the sparkle of their rhymes. At their worst, they merely enlighten one to the fact that one doesn't really know what one is talking about. Subsequent comments of yours, Jim, like—"rhymers should accept on faith that their verse is superior to the alternative of free verse because few in the world of poetry now do"—convince me of the latter.

This is a great explanation.

I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, there are elements of this poem I enjoyed. To get more specific here are a few phrases I thought could use some improvement (which re-iterates how hard this poem is to get right):

When want of will and dearth of cause constrain
to keep ideas and words outside the brain,
a map of worry cannot sidestep strife
or set a course to fill the sails of life.
Don’t blame some lack of love from mortal kind,
or frame your formless thoughts in squares of mind,
to make excuse for failure to perceive
when asking gods themselves to please believe.
When, all your musing days, not once you’re brave,
when, soon must choose to burn or rot in grave,
now take the bolder path, the bolder traipse—
this truth, above the rest, accept with faith…
that through the toughest tests and hardest times,
those poets truly lit have writ in rhymes.

A few months ago when I was asking about meter I spent an hour or so attempting to write a poem in a similar style (didactic, rhymed), and it was quickly obvious to me how hard it was to pull off well.

And that's the kicker, a writer needs to be able to give their own poem a critical eye. If it's not done, it's just not done. To me this poem is about 80% done, but as Nemo mentioned the thesis might be another issue.

What worked for me were the elements that retained the old-school, traditional style, but when they were mixed with words like 'brain' and 'truly lit' it created a facetious tone that made me think the poem wasn't actually being taken seriously.

But then, maybe the irony's getting lost on me too.

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Jim,

I have nothing to add to what others have already said. But I'd encourage you to really study what Nemo has to say.

Rick

[Alexandra Baez]

Jim, I find your poem paraphrase to be surprisingly gripping compared to the poem itself. It is bold and direct, and what a nice ironic surprise it is to find at the end of this free verse, the observation that the best poets write in rhyme! This "version" has the classic tone of some wise foreign poet of days past, translated into English. Really, I strongly urge you to embrace this as the poem's revision.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by A. Baez

I find your poem paraphrase to be surprisingly gripping compared to the poem itself. It is bold and direct, and what a nice ironic surprise it is to find at the end of this free verse, the observation that the best poets write in rhyme!

That occurred to me too as I was reading the paraphrase, but I lacked the nerve to suggest it. Some of it might still want a little poeticizing—it doesn’t even have to be free verse if you don’t want it to be—but if you do revise, I’d try sticking closer to the paraphrase and its engaging directness.

[R. Nemo Hill]

It's seems egregiously absurd to me (rather than "ironic")...

a.) to present a poem arguing for the superiority of rhyme when it is only a free-verse paraphrase that can make some sense of it,

and

b.) to make a statement in such a poem that rhyme is the superior form of verse with absolutely no elaboration of why that is. Is the reader supposed to simply accept such a conclusion without a shred of evidence? For me, the claim has minimal merit; and yet I would expect, at the very least, that the poem would make some attempt to present the process of reasoning which has led the author to such a sweeping generalization.

Nemo

[John Riley]

I started to comment on the silliness and pettiness of this but decided to read my Brodsky instead.

[Orwn Acra]

"Next, when you are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."

"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'?"
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.

And so on.

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

Hi Jim,

It is the incredible arrogance of your basic premise that destroys this piece. It is comparable to stating that opera is superior to folk songs or jazz is greater than classical. Hubris in the extreme. The arguments used here are the same as those you decry. That which divides is always easier to embrace and understand rather than that which unites.

All poetry wanders at times, between extremes, either an exercise in tatting doilies or in the angst of stream of consciousness. Constructs without real meaning. To me poetry should appear in that no-man’s land between music, speech and art, where sound and content marry in synergy, where philosophy and intuition comfortably co-exist whether atonal or melodic.

Didactic cloth is always rough on the skin.

[Alexandra Baez]

It seems egregiously absurd to me (rather than "ironic")...

a.) to present a poem arguing for the superiority of rhyme when it is only a free-verse paraphrase that can make some sense of it,

To be clear, my idea was that Jim's paraphrased poem could read as an effective sardonic jab at those who "accept on faith the superiority of rhyme." Yes, egregiously absurd--in a (post hoc) intentional and funny way.