But it’s prose! I tell you. Prose in short lines!
Running randomly like untrained vines
That cling to a garden’s formality
Reducing all to banality.
It’s prose! In case you did not spot;
There’s no artifice no syntactical knot.
No structure, no dalliance with rhyme
No touch ambrosial – sublime.
Yes its Prose! It has no form beyond
That which robs meaning, should it abscond.
No worth - save what’s on a tin, or a can
Not a gourmet meal; unmitigated spam.
Thanks John. Good to know I am not the only one who falls into the trap of word economy. (:o)
In passing I always felt 'Only swinger in town' was poorly written and not well performed. perhaps tht's why I didn't know his name. Pax.
Hello Barrie,
I wasn't meaning to sound disparaging with my re-work of the Fred Wedlock quote. Quite the reverse, in fact.
I thoroughly enjoyed your gentle dig at the debate on avant garde v conventional poetry.
All hail Harry! I suspect I could build my own Flanagans faster than I can get to yours. Not sure if my profile says: "Newbury".
Agreed - straggle is naughty in anything posted. (Mea culpa.) OK for self-read, as we correct the straggle aforethought. I have a truly bastard one just right for upcoming 11th Nov. and for 'downgoing' Marine. I'll post, and you can make hay.
Barrie,
You should have been at Flanagans last
night to hear Chris read his satire, ending with the display of his `masterpiece`(yes, you got it - a blank page)
Granted that sometimes you can`t batter the sense of what you`re trying to say into rhyme, but you should at least be meciful to the poor guy reading it and try to make it tidy.
(how often some stray lovely or memorable lines get lost in the straggle)
This is proving a very productive sally M.C.
On Friday I attended one of those poetry things that abound, where a guru leads a group nowhere in particular. One of the 'poems' we were handed was just so short of - well - everything, that I got rebellious when reading it at home.
A special gift, you say? Perhaps even more special, is to be able to detect the barely detectable? (:o) There can be no right or wrong, of course. We now have silence as music, and there must be a blank page of poetry somewhere. I yield.
It takes a special gift to write prose that can
pass for poetry - and precious few have it.
A reminder of how good it can be is to be
found in "The Burning of the Leaves" - a piece
for the time of year if ever there was one.
It is also timely that its author wrote the
immortal lines "For The Fallen".
Just checkin' (:o) Off to visit Fred Wedlock.
Cheers John
"I write my poems quite free of bourgeois restrictions like rhythm and rhyme...
...and interest". (paraphrase of Fred Wedlock)
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M.C. Newberry
Sat 9th Nov 2013 11:44
As one whose blogs are always in verse (well, I
like to call it that!), I am not a fan of prose
per se in poetry; indeed, I often view it as akin
to provincial newspaper reports in its style and content.
Like JC, I enjoyed your lines in an ongoing
for/against debate...but will stick to rhyme
myself.