Janet--

I actually enjoy the history writing, as it happens. And I get more per lecture than a contributor's copy doing it. Different parts of the brain, really.

Quincy

Quincy, that's different. Perhaps it has something to do with age. But I have always found that painters are better at painting then talking and musicians are better at playing than talking and dancers and poets dance and write better if they don't look at their feet.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 20, 2006).]

Janet--

Of course it's different.

But while maybe Classical musicians don't have nerdlinger discussions of music, but rock musicians do. When I was playing more regularly than now--in bands and so on--I could wax eloquently for ages about the use of feedback and syncopation, the relative virtues of analogue versus digital equipment, etc. You talk about it because it's interesting and you like it. The most interesting musicians, like the most interesting poets, are those with varied, wide-ranging tastes that they can discuss articulately--which you do on a pretty regular basis.

Quincy

That's right, Janet.

For dancers and poets alike, watching your feet too closely leads to prat-falls.

But Quincy, didn't you always illustrate the points during discussion? Try out new things? It wasn't a separate activity. It was practical.
Janet

Ralph, a while back, Rhina had all of us writing ovillejos, though none succeeded as well as she did in the one you quote. My own best effort was the following:

OLD

Lately I've been told
I'm old
and other depressing stuff.
Enough!
You need not tell me so.
To know
that I have lost the glow
of youth, of course, is sad.
Whatever you would add,
I'm old enough to know.

David,

Your point about "seriosity" is well-taken, but I think when things start getting heated it may be good to have a diversion to the lighter side regarding such things as pasta (not to say, Janet, that the topic doesn't have its weight as a metaphor!)

By the way, if you are as pressed for time as I am and have to resort to jarred sauce (blush, blush http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/redface.gif), Ragu is very good. The Amy's line of sauces (available at health food markets) is also quite excellent).

Apologies to David, and all you gourmet chefs.

Marion

Let's go for it. We'll create our own society then shut the door.

On the point of seriousness, yes, the thread got a bit out of whack for a while, and I started the discussion hyperbolically, anyway, but it hasn't been without its uses. There probably is a question here that could be usefully contentious of broadened a bit--which forms seems to go with what subjects? Trusty IP is pretty versatile, but when do you make a line shorter or longer? What does Duncan MacLaurin, for example, see in forteeners? (Duncan, I use them, too, on occasion.) When does the volta in a sonnet help a writer add meaning, and when is it a royal pain in the kiester? I've seen it asserted here that common meter is best used for light verse? Why do people feel that way? Has its frequent use in hymns over the centuries set up certain expectations that are hard to avoid when using it seriously?

I could go on, but will leave it to someone else (or no one, perhaps) to condense this into a forum topic.

Quincy

P.S.--A good bottled sauce can be a useful starting point. Like Marion, I don't always have the time to work from fresh ingredients, but I do usually add to it. Fried onions, a little bell pepper, a couple of diced fresh tomatoes, etc. can do wonders.

QRL

I don't know about ovillejos (would be interested to find out what they are) but at West Chester last year Alica mentioned "Fibs," poems based on the the Fibonacci sequence of numbers made famous in The Davinci Code. Here are a couple of my attempts at it:


I
am
only
a poor boy
but you know I'm rich
from the way I love you, sweet one.

My
dear,
Barbie:
my goddess,
wild lover-girl—
I will never forget your light.

Yet another form. Whether or not it catches on, no one can tell. I notice Paradelles and Sonnenizios are being written and published of late.