THE RIVER

[keats]

Don't change that piece, Neville. It was excellent. Great imagery and I felt that short and sharp was the whole concept and the power behind it. Yes a rhyming poem could be made of it, but couldn't you just write a different rhyming piece? As I said, these topics are more powerful when they don't linger on for two pages! Good stuff mate.

[Terry]

Hi Neville,
In some ways I agree with Keats, but what I was alluding to was that when I read your poem I could immediately see the potential for a rhyming poem in it, and mentally started looking at the possibilities. Here is a river telling its own story and the possibilities seemed endless to me at least, transforming from a gentle flow into a raging unstoppable torrent as it rushes ever onwards towards the sea, with all the drama and devastation we have witnessed in recent times. And then with it's energy spent it slowly reverts back to the gentle stream of yesteryear, but it's still a sleeping giant, always ready to burst forth once more.(that's the sort of thing it suggested to me) You could write in any form you wished of course, but being a bit one dimensional I saw it as a rhyming poem. Mind you one of these days I will have a go at the other form.

Cheers Terry

[swaggyjoe]

"The River" is an appropriate metaphor for 'free' verse.
A river doesn't exert itself, always runs downhill following the path of least resistance doing it's best to 'wear away' anything of substance. Every so often it breaks it's banks to cause destruction to it's surrounds ... as Heather said "Doesn't give a damn" ...
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In the beginning the word was "Ug"

[Zondrae]

morning Neville,

I was, in no way suggesting that you make any changes to your poem. It goes back to the very soul of a writer, being the creator, having control of his work. When I said I would like to hear the poem, my meaning was that I would like to hear you read it. Being the writer, only you will know exactly where you wish the emphasis to be. (I have intentionally not used the word 'stress'.) My comment on wanting more was simply my first reaction. I said this as a compliment to your skill as a 'picture painter'.

I am sure most of us have poems that do not 'conform' and we would not change them. - these will never make it in a 'bush poetry' competition but may be close to our hearts because of the content.

[Terry]

Hi Neville,
Further to what I said in my last post, you could almost imagine the river hitting back at what man has done to it, by breaking out at last and reclaiming it's freedom and smashing any puny obstructions where man has encroached into it's domain. the possibilities are endless really aren't they.

Terry

[Neville Briggs]

Thanks Keats, I think you make a good point, worth noting by all writing learners like me, doing a variety of versions on the same theme is a very good method of developing one's power of expression.

If you wish Terry, take my theme and even the same words and make a rhyming poem out of it. I'd be interested to see how it turned out. And I assure you I have no plan to make value comparisons.

Ah swaggiejoe, a good point, as one commentator has said , art cannot be anything goes. If it is anything goes, then that's the opposite of art, art is a deliberate designed construction. " There's a lot of bad stuff out there claiming to be modern verse, but then some people make prejudicial references to rhyming bush ballads as " rancid doggerel " and
" Dr Suess verse " or " banging the drum " and in some cases they have a point. I think it's best to take each one on its merits, I don't think that a broad subjective stereotype will do the job.
I wasn't trying to do "free verse " by the way.

G'day Zondrae. I am always intererested in your comments. I think that you are a very good poetry writer.
I know what you mean about things being suitable for "private viewing " I certainly agree.
There's plenty of stuff which is only really meaningful to the person who wrote it.
and it wouldn't make it in competitions.

Bill Williams is trying to do a project to collect audio recordings of our little poetry team here.
I'm not very good at the technical stuff of computer audio, but I have discussed it with Bill about giving it a go. I'll see about trying to make an audio file and if you are interested, see how I could pass it on for your info.
Bill does very good ones, he sends them to me now and again, he even gets musical accompaniment in his.

[swaggyjoe]

Goodonya Nev. If anyone wants to have a crack at recording, all you need is a mike/headset and a sound recording programme. There are a number of free ones on the net. A good one to get started with is ...

Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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In the beginning the word was "Ug"

[Neville Briggs]

I had a look at audacity. There are words there much more obscure than UG, I'll see what I can work out. Thanks.

[Maureen K Clifford]

No Neville once you get the hang of it Audacity is good - I use it

This is good - Here's a link to a youtube tutorial on mixing which makes it a lot easier

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1IqWoWu8gU

And there seems to be a heap of other tutorials for Audacity there as well....

You will surprise yourself Neville - just persevere and do baby steps

Cheers

Maureen