a formal distinction
I like this, from Auden, in The Dyer's Hand:
"The difference between formal and free verse may be likened to the difference between carving and modelling; the formal poet, that is to say, thinks of the poem he is writing as something already latent in the language whcih he has to reveal, while the free verse poet thnks of language as a plastic passive medium upon which he imposes his conception."
Of course the sad truth is that both are true, maybe almost in equal measure; or more and less so at different times (sometimes separated only by a split second! No wonder it's hard).
5 comments:
In Stephen King's On Writing book, he uses the metaphor of an archeological excavation to describe writing his stories. The first draft is like using the big diggers and reveal the very basic shape, and gradually the implements he uses become finer as the body of the story is revealed.
Good writing just is. It happens. The abstractions to label it and understand come from a different domain of process/thinking/being. The abstractions will always fall short due to the anthropological distancing of one domain from the other. There will always be breaks in the frames created for uderstanding writing. And that's good.
:)
The formal poems I have written (mostly sonnets), have fallen into my hands as though by an act of grace. A tweak here and there and that's it. There are not many of them. Some of my free verse poems look as though they want to be something formal, but if I try to shape it according to the rules of, say, a villanelle, it doesn't work. I just have to let it be a villanelle kind of free verse. I don't know how anyone writes a sestina - much grace, much skill. I had half of one once, it didn't want to complete - or perhaps I was wearing the wrong glasses.
I dashed off 'Season(ing)s of Love' the moment I woke up one morning. That is to say, before full daylight could kick in and stop me. It's a brilliant poem.
-Robert.
I am a reader of poetry, but a writer of a very different kind. Like The Fool, my feeling is that good writing just is, and I am reluctant to argue what *makes* good writing. But one thing I will say is that there are as many different modes of writing as there are personality types. If that were not so, reading would in my view be a rather dull experience.
This, of course, does not apply to journalism, which is very often flat and formulaic. And there I am as guilty as the next hack.
Post a Comment