Re #3: I'll often swap between free verse and various metrical forms as part of the revision process, though I'll only submit a poem to the triolet treatment if it's really annoying me.
I like the foreign language idea. Sometimes when I have a draft that is promising-or, at least, that still interests me-I put it into French, or German. I studied these at university but have never spent long periods of time in either place ;in other words, my grasp of them is pretty good but not nearly native.What I get with this is a poem that is much simpler, plainer and more direct. . .waffly words completely cut away (because I don't know how to waffle in French or German). It's sometimes the way forward.
But if the ENERGY has gone (i.e. my investment in the poem) then the whole thing is dead. End of, as the younger generation say.Time to move on.
Apologies for crap grammar in the preceding post. Meant to say ". . .have never spent long periods of time in places where these languages are spoken."
Or am I too pedantic ? This is a blog, ain't it ? not an academic paper. Or a poem.
I've seen far worse, panther. At least I could understand what you were saying. With some, even that hope is missing.
Yes, it is impossible to waffle in a language you don't speak like a native.
And then there's the idea of nuances and associations in a foreign language ... of those, you may get a few, but then there are many which will always escape you, because they are cultural references either so contemporary or buried so deep in a people's psyche that a foreigner is unlikely to be able to grasp them unless they are resident in that country for a considerable length of time.
That's one reason I enjoy poetry in other languages (i.e. not in translation); when I can speak the language to a reasonable extent, the impressions I get of the poem may be wildly inaccurate compared to a native speaker, but they are also very simple and therefore more powerful, like a single beam of light in a great darkness.
Sometimes I can use those 'simple' but 'inaccurate' impressions to springboard into a new poem of my own. Yves Bonnefoy's work affects me like that, for instance. As Harold Bloom would put it, it's an act of poetic misprision, or misreading, resulting in a new work.
9 comments:
Most ture indeed, Jane.
Moi hast rewritten "They Ran," my first "Real" poem.....well, a lot.
Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor
Re #3: I'll often swap between free verse and various metrical forms as part of the revision process, though I'll only submit a poem to the triolet treatment if it's really annoying me.
I can't decide if Tor (above) meant to write 'Most true' or Moisture', though I do hope the latter!
J. ;)
I like the foreign language idea. Sometimes when I have a draft that is promising-or, at least, that still interests me-I put it into French, or German. I studied these at university but have never spent long periods of time in either place ;in other words, my grasp of them is pretty good but not nearly native.What I get with this is a poem that is much simpler, plainer and more direct. . .waffly words completely cut away (because I don't know how to waffle in French or German). It's sometimes the way forward.
But if the ENERGY has gone (i.e. my investment in the poem) then the whole thing is dead. End of, as the younger generation say.Time to move on.
Apologies for crap grammar in the preceding post. Meant to say ". . .have never spent long periods of time in places where these languages are spoken."
Or am I too pedantic ? This is a blog, ain't it ? not an academic paper. Or a poem.
It's been a long day.
I've seen far worse, panther. At least I could understand what you were saying. With some, even that hope is missing.
Yes, it is impossible to waffle in a language you don't speak like a native.
And then there's the idea of nuances and associations in a foreign language ... of those, you may get a few, but then there are many which will always escape you, because they are cultural references either so contemporary or buried so deep in a people's psyche that a foreigner is unlikely to be able to grasp them unless they are resident in that country for a considerable length of time.
That's one reason I enjoy poetry in other languages (i.e. not in translation); when I can speak the language to a reasonable extent, the impressions I get of the poem may be wildly inaccurate compared to a native speaker, but they are also very simple and therefore more powerful, like a single beam of light in a great darkness.
Sometimes I can use those 'simple' but 'inaccurate' impressions to springboard into a new poem of my own. Yves Bonnefoy's work affects me like that, for instance. As Harold Bloom would put it, it's an act of poetic misprision, or misreading, resulting in a new work.
These are really good points, though your metaphors of incest and in your previous post, necrophilia, are ever so slightly worrying!! :)
It's all coming out now ...
Some of these ideas are amazing and very original. In fact I'm going to use the idea of writing a sequence round one poem, straight away. Thanks!
Shaz
Post a Comment