[James Brancheau]

****%%^%&^%&i%&^%u&%u&^***

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

she is making the beginner's mistake of confusing "meter" with "rhythm."

as am I in my post above. (We have better editors at Eratosphere than they do at Poetry.)

[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

Does Poetry not have editors? Is it not a reflection on that magazine that it prints an article presenting iambic pentameter as an example of free verse?

Here's the poem in question, Max. How would you characterise its metre?

best,

Matt


In the Winter of My Thirty-Eighth Year
BY W. S. MERWIN

It sounds unconvincing to say When I was young
Though I have long wondered what it would be like
To be me now
No older at all it seems from here
As far from myself as ever

Walking in fog and rain and seeing nothing
I imagine all the clocks have died in the night
Now no one is looking I could choose my age
It would be younger I suppose so I am older
It is there at hand I could take it
Except for the things I think I would do differently
They keep coming between they are what I am
They have taught me little I did not know when I was young

There is nothing wrong with my age now probably
It is how I have come to it
Like a thing I kept putting off as I did my youth

There is nothing the matter with speech
Just because it lent itself
To my uses

Of course there is nothing the matter with the stars
It is my emptiness among them
While they drift farther away in the invisible morning

[John Whitworth]

Susan, you are right of course about musicians who can't read music. Lionel Bart made himslf a millionaire (and lost it all, poor chap) by writing lots of musicals without being able to read music. Nevertheless, I can't help thinking the musicals wuld have been better if he had been able to read music and he might have made even more money.

I always write in metre and rhyme because if I don't it's no good. And I don't care for a lot of free verse but at doesn't mean it lacks merit, just that I don't like it. We don't have to like anything. W.S. Gilbert didn't care for Shakespeare.

I should say that Merwin's poem approximates to a lot of Jacobean blank verse. Middleton perhaps, or John Ford. It's not free verse IMO. Free verse is... freer. ee cummings say? Actually I like ee cummings.

James, I don't think it is defensiveness. It's just that the article has a curious tone, rather de haut en bas if you know what I mean. A lady talking to the peasants as if they were her equals. So naturally we throw our greasy nightcaps at her.

[Max Goodman]

Thank you, Matt. I should, of course, have looked up the whole poem rather than writing so harshly out of such ignorance. I am abashed. I appreciate the correction.

[Michael Juster]

Just a note FYI--the Poetry Foundation operates its website independent of Poetry the magazine. This piece was not in Poetry the magazine.

I know, I get confused about their boundaries too...

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Michael Juster

Just a note

And it's a good note.

There's also this problem: the article is written by a young scholar. She's a decent poet and appears to be a decent human being. It generally advocates things we like: who here could be opposed to having more formal considerations brought up in the writing programs. We *should* be celebrating her, and welcoming her contributions with open arms.

But how has her work been discussed? With the same superior, elitist, almost sneering disdain so many first steps receive. I keep imagining her, discovering this discussion and clicking in to see what's being said. And imagining how I'd feel to see such things being written about my work. No wonder we're not growing. No wonder people say the things they do about us.

I actually believe we're better than this. But we certainly haven't shown it in this instance.

Best,

Bill

[Roger Slater]

I totally fail to see your point, Bill. It is simply not "sneering" to notice out loud when someone purports to write authoritatively about meter but mangles a simple scansion. The idea that we have somehow wronged this poor innocent writer by reacting as elitists just because we dared to roll our eyes at the state of "expert" scholarship doesn't make sense to me. No one said she wasn't a "decent human being," so I haven't the slightest idea where you're coming from with that one. For all I know, she could be my favorite person on earth if I got to know her, but that doesn't turn a trochee into a dactyl or let her off the hook for the error. I really don't care in the least how she'd "feel" to see that people have noticed her mistakes, any more than she cared how you or I would "feel" when we read her piece. It strikes me as odd that you patronize her so tenderly while telling us that she is a "scholar." Scholars don't need to be indulged or patronized or have their feelings protected against contrary points of view. For me and most of us here, it is not an attack on her but a rolling of the eyes to see another demonstration of just how low on the totem poll meter has sunk that even well-meaning "scholars" writing in prestigious venues don't seem to understand the basics.

[John Whitworth]

I am sure we are all decent human beings, Bill.

[Michael Juster]

If it makes it easier, you can exclude me from the category.