A little criticism first:
Anapestic meter is very infectious, and it's very easy to force the meter onto lines in a way that you can't do with iambic meter. But it never sounds as good as it could when it's forced. I think the meter has problems in S3.
In the first stanza, the word "things" is demoted in an anapestic foot; and in the second stanza, there's a demotion in the anapest "round the earth", namely the word "round"; and both demotions are okay, in my view, since we've picked up the meter from the start of the poem and can accept a couple demotions to create anapestic feet. But in S3, there are suddenly too many demotions of that kind. And it looks and sounds "flawed"; in other words, it doesn't look like an intentionally created metrical pattern. It's simply flawed craftsmanship, in my view.
Praise: Yes, it's a fun poem, and I like it. Very good details, and I really like how the dog memorized Frost. Chuckles all around from me. At first I felt I might have liked a more powerful or humorous a punch at the end, but I quickly changed my mind; I like the trout, and the real show of dogginess in Jake.
Last edited by Petra Norr; 09-15-2010 at 10:21 AM.
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