Thanks for this, Peter. It's an excellent poem, IMO, no matter how one scans it. The resonance in certain very ordinary, even ugly, places because we were young there--the idea always grabs us. The relationship between the litter on the water and the deadness of old dreams is wrenchingly sad.
It's interesting that I have no trouble with L6, whereas for me L7 has too many beats. I think the problem some people have with loose meter is a sense of niggling annoyance at not being able to tell how the poet was hearing in a line that seems off. If it's clearly meant to be IP, what was the poet stressing or not stressing to get IP out of that line? It's as if one spends too much time on that problem and so is distracted from other beauties.
|