Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Recurring debates on important poetry topics.
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Bob Pacey
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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Bob Pacey » Mon Jun 09, 2014 7:53 am

Not something I can agree with Heather


The set up of the lines only disguises but does not hide the rhymes.

For me the rhymes stand out like the proverbial no matter what the layout

Same goes for Matts poem all that is being done is changing the layout and how it is placed on the page or read ?

What the differing layouts really do is increase the impact that the poem has on the reader drawing them into the flow of the poem as the writer would feel is appropriate. Just as in some cases a four line verse does.

I convert most poems for learning into the four line format as I find this really imprints on the mindset and gives a set format for where the emphasis might be.


There’s a lonely stretch of hillocks: There’s a beach asleep and drear:
There’s a battered broken fort beside the sea.
There are sunken trampled graves: And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.


"A smear of cloud anticipates
the failing sun and now awaits
adornment far beyond the artists' skill.
And in good time majestic swales
of colour fill the cirrus sails
that clear celestial decks for night to fill."


"A smear of cloud anticipates the failing sun and now awaits
adornment far beyond the artists' skill.
And in good time majestic swales of colour fill the cirrus sails
that clear celestial decks for night to fill."


Bob
The purpose in life is to have fun.
After you grasp that everything else seems insignificant !!!

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Bob Pacey
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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Bob Pacey » Mon Jun 09, 2014 8:16 am

I think that we all have favourite format and the challenge is to vary this from time to time to see the effect that is can have on a poem or its readers.

The three line layout seems to be more accepted by the media I think more so because of space constraints . I do a lot of short poems about topical subjects responding to articles in the local paper as in the one below.

There has been a lot of talk of late:
about this bloody levee thing
to keep the flooding water out the town.

The arguments are flowing fast :
from all around the place
some are so far fetched they bring a frown.


And the format can really make a big difference.

I have tried in the past to get the local newspapers to stay with the format in which poems are submitted to no avail in fact I had a high school teacher approach me on the weekend enquiring as to how I decide exactly that because he had noticed that in the paper some of the verses seem to run into one another.

Whilst on the subject of format do we have the option on the site to centre our poems on the page ? Even if I cut and paste the poem will still appear aligned to the side ?

Well it may be the Queens birthday but I've gotta work so see ya.

Cheers Bob
The purpose in life is to have fun.
After you grasp that everything else seems insignificant !!!

manfredvijars

Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by manfredvijars » Mon Jun 09, 2014 9:31 am

That Wallace-Crabbe piece "Melbourne" sits quite comfortable with me.

I see regular metre (iambic pentameter) and regular rhyme.
The rhyming is such that it's non-predictive or in your face, which frees the reader to soak up the content.
But what this piece also has is "rich language", sadly lacking in much of today's verse - there are exceptions of course.

Seeing pieces by those, unknown to me, like "Melbourne" exite me. Also enjoying the works of hully, matt, Fredriksen and our own David amongst others I think the revolution has already begun and the future is in good (writers) hands ...

How long before these works surface in competitions .... .?????

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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Neville Briggs » Mon Jun 09, 2014 9:47 am

:lol: :lol: :lol: naughty Matt, smack smack :lol:
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Neville Briggs » Mon Jun 09, 2014 9:48 am

I know what you mean Glenny. Have you ever seen that bit in the movie Dead Poets Society where the class is shown how to analyse a poem by drawing a graph.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

Heather

Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Heather » Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:06 am

Boby you've missed my point (or praps I didn't make it well). I was trying to illustrate how poems can be still be written with rhyme and metre but made less boring by being cleverly written and how varying line length can break up the monotony. I only broke up that stanza to show how I read it.

manfredvijars

Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by manfredvijars » Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:10 pm

matt wrote:had a read of Mr Crabbes poem David and for me, that is the typical style and tone of what i consider the "latte set".
Not into latte, but definitely a black tea no sugar bloke.
The piece still sits comfortably with me for the reasons stated ... :D

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Mal McLean
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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Mal McLean » Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:16 pm

The Laws of God, The Laws of Man

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Alfred Edward Housman

Food for thought?
Preserve the Culture!

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David Campbell
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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by David Campbell » Mon Jun 09, 2014 2:00 pm

Thanks to all for the responses.

Glenny highlights the basic dilemma for judges, often caught between the practicalities and the desire to recognise the “essence” (good word!) of a poem. Trying to evaluate beauty and lyricism with a chisel and hammer, as she so aptly describes it.

The observations by Heather and Bob about the effectiveness of different layouts are significant, for bush poetry tends not to vary the physical appearance of a poem very much in comparison to free verse. And Bob’s question about the format limitations on this site is particularly important. Everything automatically aligns left, which restricts layout possibilities. Does anyone know if there’s any way of fixing that, so we can paste directly from Word and keep an unusual format?

"Judge not, that ye be not judged", Mal?

With regard to the Wallace-Crabbe poem Melbourne, I’m with Neville and Manfred rather than Matt…I like it. It makes me think and question. It’s a lament, a heartfelt expression of regret, not in language as rich and complex as the Les Murray piece, but nevertheless suitably evocative. The idea of Melbourne as a city that “bloats/Between the plains of water and of loam” (it sits between the Bay and a vast basalt plain to the north) resonates, particularly when linked with the later image of it being strangled by “remorseless cars”, with “Its limbs still kicking feebly on the hills”.

That’s the physical side. Then there’s the emotional and artistic aspect, where “our blood flows easily”… “Following our familiar tides”, while elsewhere “Victims are bleeding”. But we can see the newsreels “when we dine in town”. This reference suggests the poem was written several decades ago, perhaps in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. That would also tie in with “Ideas are grown in other gardens” and “The artists sail at dawn/For brisker ports…”, for that was the era when so many artists and the likes of Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes headed overseas for inspiration and recognition.

So it’s a poem full of melancholy, a portrait of a conservative city relaxed within itself when so much more could be achieved. We are content with “Imported and deciduous platitudes,/None of them flowering boldly or for long”, happy to talk endlessly about the weather (still true!).

But the key lines are these:

“Old tunes are good enough if sing we must;
Old images, re-vamped ad nauseam,
Will sate the burgher’s eye and keep him quiet
As the great wheel runs on.”

That’s one reason why I referenced this particular poem.

Cheers
David

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Mal McLean
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Re: Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

Post by Mal McLean » Mon Jun 09, 2014 3:06 pm

;)
Preserve the Culture!

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