07-11-2011, 05:21 AM
Billy, if you keep going on about trochees you'll find yourself beaten to death with one :p
As to writing in the modern idiom, if you have to mangle the language to make it fit a rhyme scheme, you're letting the poem dictate to you -- a fatal flaw for any poet. If you can't make a line work, there's always another word. I can't claim the linden as my own idea, Ovid beat me to it (or whatever the origins of Metamorphoses were before the Big O got to it), but the legend was so pretty and fitting that I couldn't resist it.
I must breathe a bit of a sigh now -- it's so lovely to write for thoughtful readers. Thank you all.
As to writing in the modern idiom, if you have to mangle the language to make it fit a rhyme scheme, you're letting the poem dictate to you -- a fatal flaw for any poet. If you can't make a line work, there's always another word. I can't claim the linden as my own idea, Ovid beat me to it (or whatever the origins of Metamorphoses were before the Big O got to it), but the legend was so pretty and fitting that I couldn't resist it.
I must breathe a bit of a sigh now -- it's so lovely to write for thoughtful readers. Thank you all.
It could be worse