[Tim Murphy]

When I first discussed some of the prose in Ploughshare, Wilbur commented on how "poetic" it was, meaning rhythmic and alliterative. I said "it's unlineated free verse." His response: "what a frightening notion!"

[oliver murray]

Originally posted by Janet Kenny:
Oliver,
I do agree in principle but good prose has cadence and phrasing don't you think?
Janet

Yes, Janet, as I said above, "I think we can agree, if it was ever in doubt, that prose can be as noble, musical, rhythmic and moving as verse, with verse, perhaps, having the edge because of the writer’s ability to control the line length or endings."

I should add that prose has "the edge" in many other ways.
Imagine carrying on this discussion in verse!

Tim,

I agree with Mr Wilbur that "unlineated free verse" is a frightening "notion" rather like the notion of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object would be,
or of the Pope not being a Catholic, but it is not an actual possibility. If it is unlineated, it is not verse and "there's an end on't," as Dr Johnston would surely have said.

[Mark Allinson]

All right, I know I am becoming a bore by quoting from this chap so much, but I am simply "dizzy with Donne" - as someone says in a movie. How is this for majesterial prose?


PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

[Meditation XVII - Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions 1624].



[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited May 26, 2005).]

[Janet Kenny]

Mark,
Donne is indeed splendid. That idea has haunted literature ever since it was written.

I love Laurence Sterne. It is so long since I read "Tristram Shandy" that I don't really know the best part to quote. I think of Auden at his most absurd when I read it. Almost anything one opens seems sparkling and intelligent. Here is the start of Chapter I:

"I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me: had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing;--that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; --and for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost;--Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,--I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world from that in which the reader is likely to see me "etc. etc.........

Janet

[oliver murray]

Well, whatever the virtues of the two pieces quoted above, compression certainly wasn't one of them. I think one can see how necessary good verse was up to at least the nineteenth century in presenting ideas and emotions in a more vital way - Donne's own verse being a good example --and how unnecessary (and unpopular) by comparison, it is now, with modern prose having stolen most of its virtues.

[Janet Kenny]

Oliver,
That's a very original and astute observation.
Janet

[Svein Olav Nyberg]

Originally posted by nyctom:
Your question begs the assumption that the only poetry is metrical poetry.

Actually, it didn't. Rhythm and other sound effects, he said. You have yourself stated that free verse has its own rhythm, and it uses sound effects. So ... Tom, how do you think prose might benefit from the techniques of free verse? I ask because I am interested in knowing.

------------------
Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

[Mark Allinson]

Yes, Oliver, it is a very interesting observation.

If, indeed, modern prose has stolen all the vitality of expression once the exclusive property of verse, then what is left for verse to do that prose can't?

Maybe the answer lies in the direction of the conscious, "artificial" texturing of language, an intentional "poetic" mode of speech. Perhaps not as extreme as Euphuism, but in that direction; poetry as a more formal "artful" dance of language, if prose has taken over all the vital, compressed jitterbugging.

If the power of direct, natural speech in poetry has been usurped by that of modern prose, why should we continue to insist that only such "naturalism" in our poetry is viable? Maybe we need a bit more "artifice" in our expression. Why bother competing for the same territory, when people obviously prefer the contemporary prose form? Naturalism, spontaneity, compression, vitality - if prose now does them better, perhaps we should find something to do that prose can't?



------------------
Mark Allinson

[Janet Kenny]

Meter and rhyme

[Carol Taylor]

Mark, prose can be just as flowery and poetic and verbose as poetry at its worst. If nobody reads it, let's hope the writer was sufficiently entertained while producing it to not care. Good prose has much more room to maneuver than poetry, lacking the constraints of line length, meter, and rhyme that poetry imposes, but it still has access to qualities such as imagery, music, humor, and a well-turned phrase.

The challenge to writing good verse is to compress without resorting to artificial means such as turning syntax inside out or speaking like a character out of Jane Austen. The challenge is to find imagery or narrative that speaks for itself without your having to explain the moral of the story to the reader. The challenge is to find the single word that effectively replaces half a dozen modifiers so that the half dozen are not missed and the image doesn't suffer without them. The challenge is to do all the above in a few pleasing words, conveying an emotion or thought or way of looking at something that perhaps wasn't already at the forefront of the reader's mind.

Writing bad metrical poetry is as easy as learning to count. In my opinion, the single most necessary defining attribute of poetry as opposed to prose is compression. But good writing is good writing, whether prose or poetry, and poetry should be at least as well written as prose.


Carol