05-23-2016, 06:58 AM
Thank you for your comments, JC.
Since the rhyme and meter have been mentioned before, I want to talk about them a little.
I made a decision a long time ago not to let rhyme determine my word selection to more than a small degree, so I go for internal rhymes and off-rhymes and, when I can get them, perfect rhymes. In this case, the second stanza has no rhymes (I tried to rhyme "give", but couldn't), and the fifth stanza has a perfect rhyme. The others are off-rhymes or internal rhymes. I would like to have been more consistent, but then the rhymes would have been in control of the message. I don't worry too much about the expectations of the reader. A good reader tries to read with an open mind. (I'm not speaking about you here. This being a forum, I expect people to read critically.)
Leanne turned me on to a poem by Oodgeroo Noonuccal which emphasizes the rhyme at the expense of the meter -- that's another way to go, but not one that I've taken so far.
As far as the meter is concerned, I am pushing the envelope in this poem. I waver back and forth between tetrameter and pentameter. This will seem odd to poets, who will notice such inconsistencies, but not to the general reader (I think). The poem is, overall, iambic, and that is what is most important to me. In my view, the poem is rhythmical.
As long as I'm writing, I might as well mention that stanza 3, line 3 has an inversion: [the intellectual disgrace] <> [remains]. Inversions are seen by many writers as old-fashioned, but I see them as a delightful tool that I'm not willing to give up. That line would sound much more plodding (to me, at least) without the inversion.
I only recently started to switch from all-caps at the beginnings of lines to caps at the beginnings of sentences only, and I think you are right that this poem would benefit from that.
If you have specific suggestions for the punctuation, please let me know.
Finally, since your criticisms were mostly technical, I take it that you understood the meaning of the poem, and that is very important to me. I take responsibility for the technical heresies, but I always want to be understood. Thank you again!
Since the rhyme and meter have been mentioned before, I want to talk about them a little.
I made a decision a long time ago not to let rhyme determine my word selection to more than a small degree, so I go for internal rhymes and off-rhymes and, when I can get them, perfect rhymes. In this case, the second stanza has no rhymes (I tried to rhyme "give", but couldn't), and the fifth stanza has a perfect rhyme. The others are off-rhymes or internal rhymes. I would like to have been more consistent, but then the rhymes would have been in control of the message. I don't worry too much about the expectations of the reader. A good reader tries to read with an open mind. (I'm not speaking about you here. This being a forum, I expect people to read critically.)
Leanne turned me on to a poem by Oodgeroo Noonuccal which emphasizes the rhyme at the expense of the meter -- that's another way to go, but not one that I've taken so far.
As far as the meter is concerned, I am pushing the envelope in this poem. I waver back and forth between tetrameter and pentameter. This will seem odd to poets, who will notice such inconsistencies, but not to the general reader (I think). The poem is, overall, iambic, and that is what is most important to me. In my view, the poem is rhythmical.
As long as I'm writing, I might as well mention that stanza 3, line 3 has an inversion: [the intellectual disgrace] <> [remains]. Inversions are seen by many writers as old-fashioned, but I see them as a delightful tool that I'm not willing to give up. That line would sound much more plodding (to me, at least) without the inversion.
I only recently started to switch from all-caps at the beginnings of lines to caps at the beginnings of sentences only, and I think you are right that this poem would benefit from that.
If you have specific suggestions for the punctuation, please let me know.
Finally, since your criticisms were mostly technical, I take it that you understood the meaning of the poem, and that is very important to me. I take responsibility for the technical heresies, but I always want to be understood. Thank you again!