Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Moonan
I'm so happy to hear you say that. I've always been puzzled by the "show don't tell" advice, even though I understand how it might be better in some situations to show vs. tell. Same, too, with incorporating abstractions. Done well, abstractions can be powerful catalysts to understanding, imo.
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Well said, Jim.
Those workshop clichés seem to be hackneyed carryovers from modernist poetics. Pound, Williams, etc., were (rightly, imo) reacting against Victorian moralization and abstraction.
Yet when Williams wrote
Quote:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
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the abstraction at the beginning is what adds an introspective twist to the images.
John’s poem does something similar at that turn, where the images suddenly rush inward by reflection: “Now we must make a decision.”
Good poem, John.