Well, now that I've joined the conversation, I'm not quite ready to shut up . . .
Ed, for me the relationships between music and poetry are intriguing, challenging, and sometimes troubliesome--but yes, there must be a link between the specific types of music and poetry that appeal to me.
And yes, much of it is about the beat. It's usually clear to me that certain material needs either a more pronounced or a more subtle sort of beat--there's a poem languishing in my files that I honestly think is both thoughtful and metrically skillful, but the thought and the meter do not match, and I just haven't managed to recast the thing succesfully.
Also, while my previous post exclaimed about how often the material that interests me seems to seek the sonnet form, I should have added that I have also worked with ideas that seem to "demand" other forms. I've occasionally had the experience of totally recasting a poem-in-progress, finding the form it really wanted from the start--and then I feel like a real poet.
Best,
Jean
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