Things you never expected to happen
I'm being stalked by someone. Unfortunately, it's the long-dead poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
I finally started reading/listening to The Ode Less Travelled, by Stephen Fry. I'd bought a copy ages and ages ago, but never got round to it. It's an interesting book, if you're interested in formal rhythmic poetry. To my mind, it's a much better introduction to the area than pretty much anything I read at school, and you're supposed to know much of this stuff by the time you do an English degree.
It is not, by any means, perfect. For a start, if you're interested in free verse, you're out of luck. It goes into quite some detail on things like choice of language when searching for rhymes, but doesn't spend much time on register, except that provided by form or the deliberately comic. It also doesn't go on for much on things you can do to fight against the form, and exploit breaking it. At a simple level, discordant lines (breaking established rhyme patterns, for example) can be used to counter the general flow of a poem. One of my favourite examples is from Ezra Pound's Tomb at Akr Caar, although I can't find a copy online. Details of doing that sort of thing is probably beyond the scope of what Fry is doing - trying to give people a grounding in the basics of poetry, so they can write their own without floudering around like they did at school when they were just told "Express yourself!"). However, it might be nice to indicate that some experienced poets break the rules to good effect.
It's definitely a worthwhile read, but you won't come away an expert, and would probably want to read something radically different to shoot off in other directions. In particular, a lot of 20th century poetry is quite different, but you could probably read some Victorian poetry, and then come into the late 19th and early 20th century, and see where people go off in different directions. Hardy, Auden, Housman, Eliot, Pound, Carlos Williams etc. Carlos Williams actually has some interesting formal poetry at the start of his career, which is overlooked in favour of later developments.
Anyway, one of the examples he uses is Gerard Manley Hopkins's sprung rhythm. This then followed me to chiller's blog, and then into Radio 4's Just A Minute. Given that I haven't thought about him in any depth in years, it's a bit unsettling to have him suddenly turn up out of nowhere.
Dead poets, stop stalking me.
I finally started reading/listening to The Ode Less Travelled, by Stephen Fry. I'd bought a copy ages and ages ago, but never got round to it. It's an interesting book, if you're interested in formal rhythmic poetry. To my mind, it's a much better introduction to the area than pretty much anything I read at school, and you're supposed to know much of this stuff by the time you do an English degree.
It is not, by any means, perfect. For a start, if you're interested in free verse, you're out of luck. It goes into quite some detail on things like choice of language when searching for rhymes, but doesn't spend much time on register, except that provided by form or the deliberately comic. It also doesn't go on for much on things you can do to fight against the form, and exploit breaking it. At a simple level, discordant lines (breaking established rhyme patterns, for example) can be used to counter the general flow of a poem. One of my favourite examples is from Ezra Pound's Tomb at Akr Caar, although I can't find a copy online. Details of doing that sort of thing is probably beyond the scope of what Fry is doing - trying to give people a grounding in the basics of poetry, so they can write their own without floudering around like they did at school when they were just told "Express yourself!"). However, it might be nice to indicate that some experienced poets break the rules to good effect.
It's definitely a worthwhile read, but you won't come away an expert, and would probably want to read something radically different to shoot off in other directions. In particular, a lot of 20th century poetry is quite different, but you could probably read some Victorian poetry, and then come into the late 19th and early 20th century, and see where people go off in different directions. Hardy, Auden, Housman, Eliot, Pound, Carlos Williams etc. Carlos Williams actually has some interesting formal poetry at the start of his career, which is overlooked in favour of later developments.
Anyway, one of the examples he uses is Gerard Manley Hopkins's sprung rhythm. This then followed me to chiller's blog, and then into Radio 4's Just A Minute. Given that I haven't thought about him in any depth in years, it's a bit unsettling to have him suddenly turn up out of nowhere.
Dead poets, stop stalking me.