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msagaraI started my writing life as a poet, published a few pieces in University reviews, and then embarked on my life as a professional liar -- which is to say, a writer of fiction.
Every so often, however, I have the same compulsion that used to drive me into the corners of crowded rooms, with scraps of paper and a pen I stole from some bewildered stranger, and I write poetry.
KP and I were discussing poetry tonight. Or rather, we were discussing a collection of poetry which I thought should have been severely edited before it saw print -- because had it been, I would have loved it. I know that poetry is hard to edit -- but oddly enough, while I would not touch a single word of the same writer's -prose- (or most prose, really, as I'm not a line-editor for other's work), I would fiddle all over the place with other's poetry, if allowed.
I'm not sure why. In fact, I'm not sure why I write the poetry, because there is not only no intent to have it published, there is an active intent to have it buried.
Anyone else?
Every so often, however, I have the same compulsion that used to drive me into the corners of crowded rooms, with scraps of paper and a pen I stole from some bewildered stranger, and I write poetry.
KP and I were discussing poetry tonight. Or rather, we were discussing a collection of poetry which I thought should have been severely edited before it saw print -- because had it been, I would have loved it. I know that poetry is hard to edit -- but oddly enough, while I would not touch a single word of the same writer's -prose- (or most prose, really, as I'm not a line-editor for other's work), I would fiddle all over the place with other's poetry, if allowed.
I'm not sure why. In fact, I'm not sure why I write the poetry, because there is not only no intent to have it published, there is an active intent to have it buried.
Anyone else?
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 10:07 pm (UTC)I think of narrative verse as a kind of prose, but more precise, more constrained in form. I don't write it though; do you write much blank verse?
It's funny. Toronto has, on its subway trains, Poetry On The Way (among the various ads the TTC sells). I love to read them, and have missed stops because I do. But at a distance, I can tell whether the author was male or female, and I've never been wrong; it's kind of like a game. My husband can't tell; we've debated my call a couple of times, and he finds it bemusing. But he doesn't write.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-19 08:16 am (UTC)I used to write mostly in blank verse, until I (finally!) learned how to rhyme a few years ago. Since then, I've mostly been working in stanzas — as much, now, because I'm still teaching myself how to use them well — or couplets. A couple of stories I have in mind for down the road will likely be blank verse (won't know for sure, of course, until I try them and see).
I am curious, btw, what collection you were talking about.
---L.
Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 08:48 am (UTC)I'm sort of like that with formal or classical structures (except Saxon poetry, whose two-beat two-beat is somehow subtle enough to fall below my radar); I lose the -words- to the rhythm. The moment I become conscious of the rhythm, there goes the poem; after that moment, it's all about measured beat. I find it overwhelming, and always have.
If it can be slipped to me in a way that I'm not aware of, I can read whole it, but almost only then :/.
But... I have a feeling that if it weren't for the rhyming, I would probably be able to read the actual syllabic work, if that makes sense; the rhyming is a big signal for my subconscious reader that things are about the get -loud-.
Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 09:18 am (UTC)---L.
Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 10:35 am (UTC)Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 12:21 pm (UTC)---L.
Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 01:08 pm (UTC)Re: rhyming
Date: 2004-06-19 01:32 pm (UTC)---L.