And of course he has to do a lot dancing around the fact that Gwendolyn Brooks, Derick Walcot and other writers of color and minority writers made great use of form in a lot of their poetry.

But who is expecting logic from revisionists?

Speaking of rhyme, there was a lot of rhyming poetry in the January issue of Poetry. I particularly liked the opening pieces by Stephen Edgar--an Australian poet, the biography note says. Do the many Australians out there know him and like him? The poems are dense and complex and they intrigue me. Good use of rhyme, I thought.

dwl

Some at least of his poems seem to be up on the web site

http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0108/index.html

The Red Sea in particular is pretty typical with the nonce form and smooth ride through the stanzas. There was also a brief thread about him in The Discerning Eye

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...ML/000231.html

I whole heartedly recommend his most recent book Other Summers (which has an odd review up at the Poetry site). I've only chatted to him once or twice since he moved to Sydney. He gave a reading which I attended and was at one other event. I could be wrong but I believe he was something of a protege of Gwen Harwood, another Australian (Tasmanian) mostly formal poet. His name keeps cropping up over here in prizes and poetry magazines. So it seems that its not impossible to thrive writing formal poetry (very formal actually)in Australia but he'd be close to the only one. Geoff Page writes formal poetry as well, some of which I like alot, but he mixes it up with other stuff.



[This message has been edited by Peter Coghill (edited January 20, 2008).]

Brian, welcome, and thanks for the Victrola poem.

David, I hope an Ozzie does have something to reply about those poems in Poetry. (Frustratingly, I can't find my January issue--I'm not sure I got one.)

A while back, I was wondering where to find a bibliography of articles in the ongoing formalism/anti-formalism debate. I found one, in the back matter of Rebel Angels, which probably everyone but me on this list has read years ago.

Seeing the bibliography and the acknowledgments lists in that book makes me very conscious of the size of the debt formalists owed to Story Line Press, and what a loss it is that they've gone under.

Not to distract from other questions above, but I have another one: When and how does clever rhyme become distracting? When is there too much of a good thing?

(Editing back because I see I cross-posted with Peter above, and I'm glad to have his recommendations and links.)

Brian Watson,
Thank you a million times for His Master's Voice. Years of record collecting and a bit of a struggle in the music business have made me love and empathise with that dog. I have never read a poem to him and wonder why I didn't try to write one. Who wrote it? Wiping away a tear.
Janet

WHOOPS! It's The Victor Dog, by Merrill.

I'm from the tape cassette generation, old enough to have nostalgia for my parent's classical gramophone records. This the first Merrill poem I read, and it was love at first sight.

Thank you Maryann and Janet (and David, in another thread) for your welcomes.

Brian,
I have it on good authority that the original dog was called "Nipper".
Janet

Fortunately, I was last in school in 1967, and thus escaped knowing what phrases like "decontextualizing poetry" are supposed to mean. This keeps my mind free for trying to write the stuff...

How about my rhyme scheme from my poem, "Hindu Woman: A Dream." The poem's not up to par with the standards here, but I like my rhyme scheme. It was my first sonnet BTW. I've been working on it for 3 years now.

silhouette
lure
debt
cynosure

prepared
ragas
shared
talas

breasts
bell
undress
knell

thighs
lies

or the alternate couplet of

svengali
Kali

Christy--I like what I'm seeing. I especially like the rhymes in your first stanza, and the alternate ending couplet intrigues me--makes me want to see the poem!

By the way, nice first post!

I just finished a poem called "Birthwalla." Walla is a Hindi/English term meaning merchant or seller, so you have in Indian speech a "cigarettewalla" or "fruitwalla." It was fun using Indian terms in that poem.

DWL