02-01-2015, 10:13 AM
Brenkin,
If you are serious about becoming a poet awareness of meter is indispensable when writing things like free verse. Good free verse poetry has a connection to meter in terms of cadence, rhythm, or beat. It is improbable that a person without this knowledge will write good free verse. Until one develops that sense of sonic movement it is extremely difficult to move forward (I only say "extremely difficult" simply because I cannot say impossible. Although I have never seen anyone with a tone deaf ear write good free verse). I think before one can consider himself a poet, he must be competent in the basic meters, and also the well known forms: sonnet, common meter, quatrains in iambic tetrameter, blank verse, and so on. Anyone has to learn the tools of their trade as well as the nomenclature to be counted seriously, regardless of the field. Can you imagine a professional piano player that cannot play by ear, or cannot read a chart? How about one that does not know the scales and cannot transpose. No he would have to know all these things and more to not be laughed out of the building by other music professional. Uh, sorry guys can you tell me what key you are in? Not gonna happen. Neither can a person legitimately call themselves a poet without learning the tools of the trade. Besides the practice that one must do to become competent creates the foundation upon which he will walk. I have been both a professional musician and an artist (that is I did it well enough to make money at it. Not that my knowledge in the field of art was that great as I could not progress beyond a certain point; angles and perspective were always difficult for me), and I can tell you poetry is the most difficult of the three. All this goes back to meters and forms, just as much as music goes back to time and notes. The only thing easy about poetry is that you already know, more or less, how to write. Alan Ginsberg was a formal poet for the first part of his life, that is he wrote formal poetry which requires a very good knowledge of meter. To write free verse without an innate understanding of meter is like writing a song without an awareness of time signature. Your friends who know nothing about music like it, of course the only time they can find the beat is if the music that is playing is disco.
BOOM - BOOM - BOOM - BOOM I still contend that disco was written so white people could find the beat
Dale
If you are serious about becoming a poet awareness of meter is indispensable when writing things like free verse. Good free verse poetry has a connection to meter in terms of cadence, rhythm, or beat. It is improbable that a person without this knowledge will write good free verse. Until one develops that sense of sonic movement it is extremely difficult to move forward (I only say "extremely difficult" simply because I cannot say impossible. Although I have never seen anyone with a tone deaf ear write good free verse). I think before one can consider himself a poet, he must be competent in the basic meters, and also the well known forms: sonnet, common meter, quatrains in iambic tetrameter, blank verse, and so on. Anyone has to learn the tools of their trade as well as the nomenclature to be counted seriously, regardless of the field. Can you imagine a professional piano player that cannot play by ear, or cannot read a chart? How about one that does not know the scales and cannot transpose. No he would have to know all these things and more to not be laughed out of the building by other music professional. Uh, sorry guys can you tell me what key you are in? Not gonna happen. Neither can a person legitimately call themselves a poet without learning the tools of the trade. Besides the practice that one must do to become competent creates the foundation upon which he will walk. I have been both a professional musician and an artist (that is I did it well enough to make money at it. Not that my knowledge in the field of art was that great as I could not progress beyond a certain point; angles and perspective were always difficult for me), and I can tell you poetry is the most difficult of the three. All this goes back to meters and forms, just as much as music goes back to time and notes. The only thing easy about poetry is that you already know, more or less, how to write. Alan Ginsberg was a formal poet for the first part of his life, that is he wrote formal poetry which requires a very good knowledge of meter. To write free verse without an innate understanding of meter is like writing a song without an awareness of time signature. Your friends who know nothing about music like it, of course the only time they can find the beat is if the music that is playing is disco.
BOOM - BOOM - BOOM - BOOM I still contend that disco was written so white people could find the beat
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.