2009/08/05
Poetic Meter v? Musical Meter v? Fragmented Syntax
In my continuing attempts to “conquer” modern poetry, I’ve been slowly working my way through Harvey Gross and Robert McDowell’s book Sound and Form in Modern Poetry. This book is useful because it includes a large numbers of 20th-century English-language poets, gives each of them a separate section, and analyzes numerous examples of their prosody. It’s mostly helpful, although there are times when I’m not sure I’m hearing the same thing they’re hearing, and plenty of times when they seem much more affected by the poetic effects than I am. But in general, it does a good job of writing for the person who doesn’t already “get” modern poetry.
I think that this book may have helped me realize where my problems lie, especially with free-verse prosody: Read the rest of this entry »
