Quote:
Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling
I don't really understand the purpose of these slippery questions with no answer
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I love Janice deeply, and yet I'm going to disagree with her here. If such questions help people get their thoughts in order, what's the harm?
Take Michael. Now, Michael knows full well that if you run into a poet who has "something to say," the best thing to do is to run in the other direction. As the cliche goes, people who have "something to say" should be writing essays, people who just love the sound of things should be poets. It's an overstatement, of course, but it has at least a crust of truth.
And yet, look what Michael says: "you start off with something that you want to say." It's embarrassing, an error, near heresy, a mistake. But as Lady Philosophy always held, we never learn anything when we're right. We only learn from our mistakes. Thus, the original simple question has given Michael a golden opportunity, a learning moment, an object lesson in writing things with humility and counter-thought. One might even say the poster has done Michael a kind good.
On the original question, there's nothing I loath more than ABAB. Except AABB. Now those *really* make me turn the page, and a few of them in a row lead to the book sailing out the window and down onto the compost pile, which is conveniently situated two stories below. I call it the defenestration of the conventional, and it grants a certain grim satisfaction, as well as supplying excellent mulch for spring plantings.
Thanks,
Bill