On Mar 19, 7:03 am, "George Dance" wrote:
> On Mar 19, 2:18 am, "Sugir Jinn"
wrote:
>>
>> OB is my hero, and Jorge....
>
>>> On Mar 18, 2:14 am, "Dennis M. Hammes"
arvig.net> wrote:>>>> George Dance wrote:
>
>>>>> That sounds like you're referring to Shakespeare, whose sonnets
>>>>> consist entirely of quatrains and couplets; obviously another writer
>>>>> for 'babies' in the opinion of Mr. Hammes.
>
>> If carbon's breath has any thought or care
>
> O, yes, Tom Bishop. He's a good example of what comes from listening
> exclusively to Dennis Hammes - he comes up with one good line, and has
> to search for 13 others, all with the appropriate end-rhymes, to set
> it in. A needle in a haystack, as it were, or a gem in a pile of
> turds. (Have to add that, since Dennis likes writing about turds so
> much.) .
>
I haven't found any "good lines" in the few poems I've read of Tom's.
I don't think that has anything to do with choice of form. I can't see
any sincerity in his writing. Everything comes across as a pose. "Look
at me - I don't fear death". "Look at me - I *care* about stray dogs".
"Look at me, I have a High Artistic Purpose", "Look at me, I can write
amusingly about birdshit", etc.
>> Gotta... jus gotta... heh...
>
>>>>> Which reminds me: if you *have* to write sonnets rather than poetry,
>>>>> why in the world choose the Petrarchan?
>
>> I rather like them.
>
> A succssful one is a pleasure to read. But look at Barrett Browning's
> ouevre; how many of her sonnets can one remember? I'll bet, just one;
> and just one line of that.
To have successfully injected a single line into the meme-pool of
canonical Eng Lit is a consummation devoutly to be wished (for most of
us).
> (Hmm, maybe I can call Barrett FAT, and get a rhyme out of it?).
>
>> #2 convinced me. Then I met others.
>
>> Didn't bother... How much time?
>> You were /going to be/ a GREAT poet, right, wormfarmer?
>
> He has turned into quite the prolific dabbler, at least. And quite
> proud of his quantity as well. At least quantity of output is
> something to be proud of.
I don't think telling Tom that is such a great idea.
> I'll bet, though, that even a mediocre
> computer programmer could write a program to compose Petrarchan
> sonnets, and exceed his output in six months' time.
It wouldn't be hard in principle to write an app that strung words and
phrases together, either at random or from a corpus, with more or less
regular meter and end.rhymes, to any formal spec. The result, of
course, wouldn't be "poetry".
>>>>> That works perfectly well in
>>>>> Italian, where almost every word rhymes with 100 or so others - one
>>>>> can write 14 lines of nothing but -ella, -ella, -ella (etc.) - but it
>>>>> looks like nothing but artifice to work in that form in English. It's
>
>>> "100 or so" is a wild underestimate most of the time.
>
>> Even wilder to speculate on your income from poetry per year.
>
> Hey, OB is fully aware of his present limitations. There's no point
> in flaming him.
Hey, but it's fun.
>>> I came to the writing of English poetry from the writing of poetry in
>>> Spanish (my "first language", not chronologically but in most other
>>> respects). Spanish, Italian or almost any of the various simplified
>>> and modernised Latins, with their inflected verb endings and reduced
>>> number of phonemes, make rhyme a doddle - it's almost harder to avoid
>>> it than to use it (one reason why assonance is prized in Spanish
>>> poetry as an alternative to strict rhyme - it requires more thought).
>
>> Babs... This is a stud!
>
>>>>> almost as absurd as writing haiku in English - now and then one may
>>>>> succeed in saying something, but only in spite of the, not because of
>>>>> it.
>
>>>> I should really get my rhyming dictionary back online.
>
>
> Good suggestion, for anyone here interested in writing rhymes.
I'm interested in something downloadable, that I can take apart and
reassemble to my own specs.
>>> The standard (IPA-based) lists of phonemic vowels (including
>>> diphthongs) found in most dictionaries vary between 20 and 22 for both
>>> US and Standard Brit English (aka RP). When non-phonemic variations
>>> are included, the number depends on the dialect and is hard to pin
>>> down, but Shaw was probably on the right track for the English he
>>> spoke.
>
>> Phonemes are interesting, and I've programmed them silly.
>> Visemes are more interesting, etc...
>
>>> I wish you would put your rhyming dictionary online. I occasionally
>>> use a Penguin RD, which ought to be good since it was computer-
>>> generated on the basis of automatic analysis of phonetic
>>> transcriptions in a standard dictionary, but it contains some odd
>>> omissions and confusions, mostly based on failure to distinguish
>>> primary and secondary stresses. Obviously a non-US user would have to
>>> adapt it, since e.g. in Brit Eng "amassed" does NOT rhyme with
>>> "vast" (pace Mr Dance), or at least not south of the Watford Gap.
>
>> Brits should be killed with an icepick in the eye.
>
> Doesn't scan; how about:
> "A Brit deserves an icepick in his eye"?
Ramon Mercader is 96.
>>>>> No wonder OB is waging a 'constant battle against form' when he's been
>>>>> confined by your advice to such a monstrosity. It's almost as if (to
>>>>> use his music analogy) you've been teaching an aspiring guitarist to
>>>>> first master the zither.
>
>>> For the record, I have never seen Dennis "advise" anyone to write
>>> sonnets. He certainly didn't advise me to do so. As I said, I was
>>> writing them in Spanish before I dared attempt any in English. Since
>>> obviously it would be quixotic to post Spanish poems to an English-
>>> speaking newsgroup, those never made it here.
>
>> Thx...
>
>> My first guitar was a Martin D-18. Cheapest Martin, but
>> still a Martin. I toured the plant twice.
>
> Do you play anything that's been composed since the 16th century?
Since you ask me the same Q in a later post: my repertoire spans from
arrangements of Provencal troubadour songs up to Beatles/Bacharach and
stuff of my own. Not sure why you ask. Obviously, if you can't play a
decent Robert de Visee you can't expect to be taken seriously as a
performer (in /any/ genre). That doesn't mean you have to limit
yourself to that stuff once you /can/ play it.
There's no avoiding scales. "Graded Grails Make Finer Flower."
>>> Never tried violin or sword (you need very good neighbours for the
>>> first, and rather bad ones for the second). Dabbled in the rest at
>>> different times.
>
>> Your sestina was lovely.
>
>>>>> Perhaps, at best, a thousand of whom are worth reading. Of course,
>>>>> the same ratio applies to the one Petrarchan sonnet writer: worth
>>>>> reading, at best, one-tenth of the time
>
>> So now I know! A whiff, a scent of love
>> can capture Angels in a sonnet's song.
>> And though, in truth, no Angel will belong
>> to me, I must attempt, to stay, the dove
>> who's come down from bright heaven's courts above.
>> But even verse can't hold this dove too long
>> since cages keeping Angels would be wrong!
>> So soar sprite spirit muse I'm pensive of
>> since pensive poets painful vigils keep;
>> and dying to an Angel's only gain
>> so deadly love I'll live within my sleep,
>> and sleeping, love the death in which I'm slain.
>> The one last question causing me to weep,
>> is how to free, and still my love contain.
>
> - Tom Bishop, 2004
>
> That is perhaps Bishop's best online work. One reason is that he put
> is best two lines at the end. (Though, IMO, they'd have worked even
> better as a couplet). Notice the padding, though - the cliched rhyme
> of 'love', 'dove,' and 'above', for instance (and the trite lines with
> no purpose except to sneak 'dove' and 'above' into the poem).
Exercise for the reader: rewrite the above sonnet in Dockerish.
