01-31-2017, 02:25 PM
I'm really not doing anything fancy with the meter -- it's just dactyl tetrameter. I didn't know what it was referred to as until this very moment, but the rhythm in this piece is basically the triple meter equivalent of iambic tetrameter, where iambic tetrameter has four feet, or stresses, compared to iambic pentameter's five. I find that in writing metered stanzas like this, sometimes I feel as though there need to be specific types of stresses at the beginning or end of the line for it to read correctly or I get tripped up. I think in this specific case it is because the previous lines are each self-contained questions ending on a stress, so I thought a soft sound was needed to push the line into the next as one sentence. I can't argue with you that "that" is a weak word to end a line on.
I would argue that trump has probably not done anything that is quite as terrible as the things done by Hitler or Stalin -- yet -- just as I wouldn't say that we are living under a fascist dictatorship -- yet. However, I do think that a lot of the precursors to such a situation are cropping up, and I find that troubling. I don't think I stated that we are living in a fascist state in the poem either. In fact, the narrator addresses this in the final stanza.
As for my thoughts on Trump and his contribution to our movement in the direction of a fascist state, since it's important to the context in which the poem was written...I feel like that's too much to include here. I had something completely written out and formatted that combined some of my thoughts with those of the reddit comment/14 aspects of fascism that I linked to before, but it seemed like it would fall into the category of meta-discussion and might not be entirely appropriate for this specific forum. I can certainly post it if it's relevant.
I would argue that trump has probably not done anything that is quite as terrible as the things done by Hitler or Stalin -- yet -- just as I wouldn't say that we are living under a fascist dictatorship -- yet. However, I do think that a lot of the precursors to such a situation are cropping up, and I find that troubling. I don't think I stated that we are living in a fascist state in the poem either. In fact, the narrator addresses this in the final stanza.
As for my thoughts on Trump and his contribution to our movement in the direction of a fascist state, since it's important to the context in which the poem was written...I feel like that's too much to include here. I had something completely written out and formatted that combined some of my thoughts with those of the reddit comment/14 aspects of fascism that I linked to before, but it seemed like it would fall into the category of meta-discussion and might not be entirely appropriate for this specific forum. I can certainly post it if it's relevant.