nyeldell
03-06-2001, 11:47 PM
I just finished reading Mary Oliver's Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse, and I have to say that I highly recommend it. Although it is focused on metrical poetry, it has very good advice for writers of all poetry, and provides a sound basis for understanding and appreciating the mechanics of metrical poetry. I have read other books related to this subject, and most are either completely technical, or completely untechnical, focusing merely on the enjoyment of poetry. This book does a great job of speaking to the enjoyment and understanding of metrical poetry from a writer's perspective, offering advice and knowledge useful to the writer. Although it seems most useful to the beginner, I think that intermediate and advanced writers would greatly enjoy the read and benefit from it as well.
"Dancing happens not only with the body but with the mind. What you write down on the page, your succession of words, is the music of the dance.
"When the poem begins to lurch and sway, its formality is shaken. When awkwardnesses trip the dancer, pleasure and attention, on the instant, will cease. Under the eye of the struggling reader, your poem has failed.
"I am not, of course, talking about matters of style, or habits of expression, or anything else cordial to effectiveness, but, simply, of a pattern that doesn't maintain itself strongly enough -- reliably enough -- to be a real pattern."
-- from Rules for the Dance
Nathan :-)
"Dancing happens not only with the body but with the mind. What you write down on the page, your succession of words, is the music of the dance.
"When the poem begins to lurch and sway, its formality is shaken. When awkwardnesses trip the dancer, pleasure and attention, on the instant, will cease. Under the eye of the struggling reader, your poem has failed.
"I am not, of course, talking about matters of style, or habits of expression, or anything else cordial to effectiveness, but, simply, of a pattern that doesn't maintain itself strongly enough -- reliably enough -- to be a real pattern."
-- from Rules for the Dance
Nathan :-)