Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.

A poem by John Ashbery

THIS ROOM

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.
We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us.
Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

Ted Hughes

'Eliot says that the best thing a poet can do is read aloud poetry as much as he can. This should be sound. Silent reading only employs those parts of the brain that are used in vision. Not all the brain. This means that a silent reader's literary sense becomes detached from the motor parts and the audio parts of the brain which are used when reading aloud - tongue and ear. This means that only one third of the mental components are present in their writing or in their understanding of reading - one third emotional charge...' (letter to Sylvia Plath 1956)

nothing to say

Don't remember where I found this


The journeys on which Ashbery sends us do not run from A to B. Any linearity of thought is lost in the woods. Rather, insights accrue at the margins, sudden revelations are not what we first thought, emotions are located but cannot be tracked. The question is how - not what - do his poems mean. Composition and content amount to the same thing. As the poet Charles Simic has observed: "Whatever an Ashbery poem eventually turns out to be about is not an idea he started with but something he stumbled upon as he shuffled phrases and images like a pack of cards. It's precisely because he has nothing to say initially that he is able to say something new

3 things I consider when writing a poem

1. The limitation / constraint / formal requirement.

• the poem will be about X
• the poem will have so many lines
• the poem will mention the word 'queen'
• the poem will have pre-determined images
• etc

(any or none of these might be in play)

2. The sounds and the rhythm

3. The spontaneous alchemy that takes place during the writing of the poem. Language leads to other language. This only happens once you get started.

1, 2 and 3 overlap

Sometimes 1 keeps 3 in check. Sometimes 3 liberates 1. Sometimes 2 prevails. Sometimes 2 feeds 3.

rhyme

One view of rhyme in English is from John Milton's preface to Paradise Lost:

"The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom.. "

A more tempered view is taken by W. H. Auden in The Dyer's Hand:

"Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyme

duty

Daan thinks I should write sonnets and sestinas and stuff.

Should I?

Dunno