Disjointed English for effect

[Veil of Trash]

from here

A question for you, Mr Dale, I am seeing a lot of people suggest that directly telling a story can be counter-productive and may make the story appear bland.

I then notice you begin to correct tenses and switch around some of this poem to put it in a more linear narrative style?
Do you think perhaps there could be merit in using broken tenses and lines to represent the immediacy or intensity of certain aspects of a story? Or does it lead to a more cliched and ineffectual method?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter as my own are quite isolated and strange

• As an inexperienced novice I haven't formed any strong opinions either way.
  
• I would love to hear the thoughts and opinions other people have on the matter.
  
• Some people certainly seem to have very strong opinions on the subject and I'd love to hear about the reasoning or breeding behind them.
  

I would guess the main reasoning behind enforcing strict grammar would be clarity and good-habit building, two things I am morally opposed to.
Unfortunately I'm too green to really cite any noteworthy examples for either case, I've not given you much to go on, but I wait hungrily for any rant you may want to throw this way.

[Leanne]

I have one hard and fast rule, and that is:

Learn the rules, then you'll know how and why to break them.

Accidentally buggerising around with grammar just to avoid doing things in a "schoolteacherish" fashion is not a good enough reason -- in poems, not only does every word count but also every space, dot and squiggle. Altering grammar conventions only has the desired effect when it's clear that's what you're doing, so then the reader will (usually) examine your reasons for doing so and find additional layers or subtleties to the poem -- if it only happens because you're ignorant of the way things are usually done, or because you saw it in someone else's poem and thought it was cool without having any idea why, or because you're too lazy to bother punctuating and using capital letters, then it's not subversive or avant garde, it's just irritating.

While strict grammar might enhance clarity on a quick skim-through (and it does), so deliberately changing the rules can draw attention to certain areas and may in fact enhance clarity even more... done properly, that is, and assuming that the reader knows his/her grammar in the first place!

[rayheinrich]

It all depends on your subject matter. My advice is to write it both
(or more) ways, let them sit for a few days, then pick what plays.

Another trick is to put whatever you're unsure of in quotes:
We both "gots" crabs and more "fellers" than a pack of "mom-o-ries".

Here's an example of impropriety by Bob Williams that I think
works quite well:


            kathy, leaving
                                         
          
            leaving that us of ours
            lying
            laid between us
            in layers of intentions
            our lips
            large and lazy
            licking
            leaving the last damn L
            of love

[Leanne]

Now that works largely because the one single capital stands out, which is pretty much what I mean about using un-grammar (it's a word now, dammit) for emphasis.

Writing "both ways" is good advice -- I tend to write everything out "properly" first, then take bits away as it suits me (although often I leave end punctuation to last, to see how it will affect the flow of the final product).

[Wildcard]

I'm just responding to click off another on the post count while I wait for the curmudgeon :p

From the perspective of someone who admittedly doesn't quite get it yet, I don't quite get it. :p I like the way disjointed, stuttering (in the sense of skipping words) and impressionist (don't know if its the right word, but yeah) stuff. Every time I try to right like that, it pretty much sucks. Now, to me it's good, but I respect the opinions of the experienced. I know that I must be making mistakes that I can't even see because of my inexperience with the basic rules of grammar- much less the intricacies of poetry.

But I still like it It's the style of poetry I admire the most. I love the structure and rhyme of form poetry, but free verse is tantalizing to me because until a few years ago I didn't know the difference between prose and poetry.

I wonder how long I can just keep rambling on about something I really don't even have an educated opinion on . . .

[Leanne]

Mark, it's only ignorance if you don't seek to correct it -- and the best way to correct it is to ask, read, attempt it yourself, be corrected and learn from your mistakes, then settle into your own style until you're comfortable enough with it that you can justify all your word/punctuation/space choices without sounding like a knob

For many people, this last bit never happens...

[rayheinrich]

<Educated opinions> (note ironic quotes) are pretty much the same
as uneducated ones with three exceptions: They are excruciatingly
long, they have no basis in reality, and they leave one in a state of
boredom verging on the preternatural.

There are two ways to create a word (or idiomatic phrase) in English:
Two people must use it once or one person must use it twice.

"Un-grammer" is a bit too quotidian for me, I prefer "atypical syntax".

Placet cuique suum.

Sir Ray
(Ever the educationistee and close friend of Google.)

[Leanne]

There's a difference between an "educated opinion" and an "informed opinion"... often the "educated" ones don't feel they require any actual "information"

As anyone *decent* who's studied writing will tell you, education only gives you the basis to go off and learn on your own. Anyone who thinks the journey ends with the piece of paper deserves the derision that they will no doubt receive from Monseigneur Raymond and his anti-quotidian coterie.

a
typical syntax
is 10% for no
goods at
services
sometimes called
con
some
shun
or poll (bull
without horn)

[Erthona]

I don't think that question has as easy an answer as your wording implies. You ask is it this, or is it that. I don't make corrections simply because there is some rule that has been broken, or that it violates a style sheet somewhere. Whatever corrections I may make, are more in the form of a question. What I am basically saying is, "I don't understand what you are saying, is this what you mean?" There are certain inherent and obvious detriments to writing something as a single unbroken line. Primarily, it is that people generally understand things in phrases with a limited number of words. This is a well researched psychological phenomenon. For an example of the outer limit of sensible complexity I suggest a reading of Kant's "Critique of Practical Reason". In the following poem, I broke the phrasing up at the natural breaks, e.g., the end rhyme. You will also notice that the lines are more or less equal.

"Tantalizing memory that bosom forth,
it brings the depth and eager spirit of creative vote,
carry me like your african child coat,
and remember a poet boat
song of your name to vote."

African is generally capped in English as it is a proper noun, however, I do not change that as it could be a stylistic choice, although I do not think so. "child coat" without possession would generally indicate a coat made out of a child, the same with "poet boat". Both interpretations are nonsensical, however since there are other ways to read it, I do not change it ad hoc, even though possession is the most likely answer, e.g., child's coat, and poet's boat. I do not believe the uncertainty caused by the writing as is, is intentional, therefore I would conclude it is an error. Either way, it is poor writing for leaving it open to interpretation does not in anyway benefit the poem. This is not an intentionally ambiguous phrase, it is simply an error, and leads to an inability on the part of the reader to understand what the poem is trying to say. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. There is nothing remarkable or profound being said here and in all likelihood it is unintentional.
Tense should be consistent unless there is a compelling reason for it not to be, otherwise it creates needless confusion and places an undue burden on the reader. Maybe someone who is a genius could use disruptions in tense to create some kind of intentional effect, but I have yet to run across such an intentional usage. There is a very noticeable difference between breaking tense rules on purpose for effect, and simply because one is a poor writer, of course that does not keep people from trying to pass off poor writing as something profound, and in fact is a level of magnitude more likely to be the case than the reverse.

Dale

from here

A question for you, Mr Dale, I am seeing a lot of people suggest that directly telling a story can be counter-productive and may make the story appear bland.

I then notice you begin to correct tenses and switch around some of this poem to put it in a more linear narrative style?
Do you think perhaps there could be merit in using broken tenses and lines to represent the immediacy or intensity of certain aspects of a story? Or does it lead to a more cliched and ineffectual method?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter as my own are quite isolated and strange

• As an inexperienced novice I haven't formed any strong opinions either way.
  
• I would love to hear the thoughts and opinions other people have on the matter.
  
• Some people certainly seem to have very strong opinions on the subject and I'd love to hear about the reasoning or breeding behind them.
  

I would guess the main reasoning behind enforcing strict grammar would be clarity and good-habit building, two things I am morally opposed to.
Unfortunately I'm too green to really cite any noteworthy examples for either case, I've not given you much to go on, but I wait hungrily for any rant you may want to throw this way.

[Veil of Trash]

I dunno, I just think some things could easily be bipartite in a sense of memory/current emotion (like if you're trying to create an image or experience that isn't wholly tangible?).
Thankyou for sharing your views.

I'm thinking:

Writing can be very restictive due to its uncertain nature -- which promotes a stricter and tighter use of English.

The chosen structure(/style/topic) of the poem probably plays a big part in peoples' tolerances of such devices. -- indeed the use of such things has to be subtle and will probably crash horribly into the above thought.

"Profoundness" seems like a tall order as an edit criterion, though I have never been properly educated in poetry, I was always under the impression that poetry was meant to be the xxx grabbingly, heart-exploding rich text of purpose. As such I'd think there would be other, equally important, things to consider? I suspect I am probably misinterpretting what you mean by "profound" -- ohsnap! that segues back into the first thought! :O

Once again, thank you all muchly for your time, you have given me a lot to think about. Sadly, I think slowly.

Interestingly... the first person in the world to be killed by a robot was called Bob Williams. :|