Eratosphere - Plodding poetry and musical prose

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Plodding poetry and musical prose

Having often heard silly questions and silly advice presented with the gravitas of a village guru, I would like to offer a gentle reminder that writing is more than the sum of its parts.

A "go-to form" useful as a security blanket was a new illumination, but how often have we not heard such trite certainties as: "you have already said sad, so cut unhappy and tears'," or 'don't tell us that the sky is blue, we know that', or 'I hate colons and semicolons', or 'don't tell what it isn't; tell what it is," ad infinitum, all culled haphazardly from some two-bit list on How-To-Write or some fuzzy inner certainty.

A poem is more than a rhyme scheme. Beautiful prose can often demonstrate the essence of prosody better than many plodding poems.

To return a moment to William H. Gass, from the essay "The Music of Prose." (And note the difference between "for ever" and "forever".)

Quote:

The Latinate measures of the great organist Henry James find an additional function for the music of prose. Here all it takes is a parade of the past tense ("he had") down a street paved with negations.

He had not been a man of numerous passions, and even in all these years no sense had grown stronger with him than the sense of being bereft. He had needed no priest and no altar to make him for ever widowed. He had done many things in the world—he had done almost all but one: he had never, never forgotten. He had tried to put into his existence whatever else might take up room in it, but had failed to make it more than a house of which the mistress was eternally absent.

If some men are has-beens, poor Stransom (in James's judgment) is a had-not-been. The passage is crammed with loss: "bereft," widowed," "failed," "absent,", in addition to the doubling of "sense," "no," "never," in succeeding sentences, and the gloomy repetition of the past tense, particularly "been" and "done." Our hero, we cannot help but hear, is a transom. He only looks on. But the music of the passage ties terms together more firmly than its syntax: "being" for instance, with "bereft," "done" with "one," "never" with "ever" and "what-" with "ever" as well. Each sentence, all clauses, commence with poor Stransom's pronoun, or imply its presence: "he had, he had, he had" trochee along like a mourning gong.

I would be happy to see other examples of prose that is musical or deliberately cacophonic or otherwise demonstrative of excellent writing.

i love this paragraph

No one would accuse Jack Vance of high art, but this paragraph from "Eyes of the Overworld" describing his greatest and most characteristic character, the amoral trickster Cugel, set me to reading at age 14 everything he's ever written. Like HP Lovecraft's, his diction and how it's deployed can be copied, but usually only poorly. For example, Colson Whitehead's "The Intuitionist" sounded to me like a bad Vance pastiche, although the tribute collection, "Songs of the Dying Earth," edited by George RR Martin, really nails the style (and his characters' constant dissembling and learned mistrust, which it often reflects) throughout. Vance's greatest gift was to use familiar words, such as "lozenges," in unexpected and, consequently, fantastical ways.

"Cugel was a man of many capabilities, with a disposition at once flexible and pertinacious. He was long of leg, deft of hand, light of finger, soft of tongue. His hair was the blackest of black fur, growing low down his forehead, coving sharply back above his eyebrows. His darting eye, long inquisitive nose and droll mouth gave his somewhat lean and bony face an expression of vivacity, candor, and affability. He had known many vicissitudes, gaining therefrom a suppleness, a fine discretion, a mastery of both bravado and stealth. Coming into the possession of an ancient lead coffin—after discarding the contents—he had formed a number of leaden lozenges."

If it's musical/poetic prose you want, read Ann Michaels' "Fugitive Pieces", and entire novel of the most musical reading you just can't even begin to imagine. I haven't come across too many books that can match that feat.

I'll remember the name, Seree. Could you post a couple of sentences or a paragraph? Pls.

""Vraiment? And maybe you visited Leningrad merely to chat with a lady in pink under the lilacs? Because, you know, you and your friends are phenomenally naive. The reason Mister (it rhymed with 'Easter' in his foul serpent-mouth) Vetrov was permitted to leave a certain labor camp in Vadim--odd coincidence--so he might fetch his wife, is that he has been cured now of his mystical mania--cured by such nutcrackers, such shrinkers as are absolutely unknown in the philosophy of your Western sharlatany. Oh yes, precious (dragotsennyy) Vadim Vadimovich--" The swing I dealt old Oleg with the back of my left fist was of quite presentable power, especially if we remember--and I remembered it as I swung--that our combined ages made 140. There ensued a pause while I struggled back to my feet (unaccustomed momentum had somehow caused me to fall from my seat). "Nu, dali v mordu. Nu, tak chtozh?" he muttered (Well, you've given me one in the mug. Well, what does it matter?). Blood blotched the handkerchief he applied to his fat muzhikian nose. "Nu, dali," he repeated and presently wandered away. I looked at my knuckles. They were red but intact. I listened to my wristwatch. It ticked like mad."

E. Annie Proulx's prose is quite musical. She tends to pile on the modifiers, but somehow, one doesn't seem to mind in way it all seems to meld together. A good example is this short story at The Atlantic.

...Alex

There's an odd implication in that dreaded poetry workshop critique that states "your poem is simply prose broken into lines" or something to that effect.

So many great writers out there (some poets even) where does one start? In answer to your question Janice, though, two people from Nebraska sprang to mind: Loren Eiseley, Wright Morris.

Quote:

There's an odd implication in that dreaded poetry workshop critique that states "your poem is simply prose broken into lines

Ah, but they never write, "In that dreaded poetry workshop critique 'your poem is simply beautiful prose broken into lines'." :)

Examples, Dean? A sentence or two, or a paragraph?

pages and pages of it are readable on amazon, J.
http://www.amazon.com/Fugitive-Piece...der_0679776591
Some sections are more 'regular' prosey, but the overall impression is of reading a book of poetic prose. It's not suprising: the author also had two books of poetry published before the novel.

Only a couple minutes here Janice, so I won't type any Morris or Eiseley, but here is a link to an essay by Lia Purpura, titled Being of Two Minds (someone else I thought of immediately when I read your question).

http://www.bu.edu/agni/essays/print/...4-purpura.html