Actually, Mark, I probably take and get away with more metrical liberty than any one else at the Sphere. The scholar John Ridland, who was the first person to review Deed of Gift, characterized my rhythms to riding on the jouncy seat of an old tractor, though he conceded that he got used to and enjoyed the ride. So your dromedary analogy gives me great pleasure.

I must say that the Pope is pretty thin gruel compared to the tortured and convincing expression of the Donne.

Tim said:
Actually, Mark, I probably take and get away with more metrical liberty than any one else at the Sphere. The scholar John Ridland, who was the first person to review Deed of Gift, characterized my rhythms to riding on the jouncy seat of an old tractor, though he conceded that he got used to and enjoyed the ride. So your dromedary analogy gives me great pleasure.

I can vouch for that. I tried to rewrite a line of a Murphy poem recently and was defeated. And I'm usually quite a glib forger.
Janet

Tim, I am glad you like the dromedary analogy, which comes out of this little ditty from Coleridge:


With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

And I agree that your short line poems could well be described in this way. But I haven't seen any of your pent material get as choppy as Donne, especially in his satires where he was trying to be as rough as he could get. Rough satires in the Renaissance were the largely the product of a false etymology, where "satire" was thought to be cognate with "satyr".


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Mark Allinson

http://markallinson.netpublish.net/