Except for the spelling of appoggiatura, this is typical of your bravura, Michael.

I always insert an error somewhere, Janis, since only God is perfect.

[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited April 08, 2008).]

I'm luvin' it!

Michael, appoggiatura —
two Gs— just means that you're a
leaner on obscurer
notes. Not saying you were.

(In Brit that almost rhymes.)

Totally my fault, Michael. I learned the proper spelling. I just don't know if it was before or after the post; a spelling error or a typo.

[This message has been edited by Christy Reno (edited April 17, 2008).]

David Landrum is free to admire (perhaps a little extravagantly) the "cunts / once" rhyme in the Kennedy
epigram, but it's not original with Kennedy. It appears
in a much better epigram by Robert Frost (possibly the greatest of all rhymers):

God fell in love but once,
Though with the best excuse.
He wasn't fond of cunts--
Not half so much as Zeus.


(Quoting from memory, so maybe slightly inaccurately)

Just skimming through this. In the recent Poetry, Carmine Starnino in his review of Kirsch's Modern Element says, "...I can't help but feel that the best explanation for his choices in Invasions is provided by Paul Valery, who said that the chief pleasure of rhyme is the rage it inspires in its opponents." Well, I love that... but I've been unable to locate the actual Valery quotation. Does anyone know it?

I can't find the Valery quotation either, but I did find a little bit more of it. In fact, I found this on a blog by someone also looking for the full quotation:

Although when I googled for it all that came up was this slightly different version: "Paul Valery said that one of the most mysterious things about rhyme 'is the rage it inspires in those who fail to see its function.'"

Failing to see the function of rhyme must be something like failing to see the function of blueness in the sky, I suppose.



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited May 06, 2008).]

Here it is…

“Not the least of the pleasures of rhyme is the rage it inspires in those poor people who think they know something more important than a convention. They hold the naïve belief that a thought can be more profound, more organic…than any mere convention.” (Italics in source)

from “A Poet’s Notebook” in Valéry, The Art of Poetry, tr. Folliot, D. New York: Pantheon Books, 1958: page 179 (“Calepin d’un poète” in Poèsie, essai sur la poétique et le poète, 1928)

Valéry has many, many wonderful and pregnant things to say about the writing of verse.

Clive

Thank you!