BACK FROM THE GEEK

[Glenny Palmer]

Helloooo me darlins' !! Subsequent to months on end of open warfare between moi & moi's pc....I'm heeere! Yay! The Geek was a tad overwhelmed at having to wrestle with this prehistoric monster, but he did manage to at least allow me to access and actually contribute to our site. Yay! (missed ya's.)

[Heather]

bin quiet without ya Glenny...

[Bob Pacey]

I thought ya just had the shits or were off galavanting again ?


Bob

[Dave Smith]

Hey Glenny my kids bought me a new putta (windows 8) cos they was sick of my bad language, now there learning words they never heard before.

TTFN

[Glenny Palmer]

Aaah. Feeling the love already. Dave Bob & Heather. xx

[David Campbell]

Hi Glenny...welcome back! Any thoughts about that conundrum I left you with? It might be worth teasing it out in the discussion forum. Zondrae raised a related issue just a couple of days ago when she asked: "Where are the rules written down that tell you where the stresses belong on words?" So it could be of general interest.

Cheers
David

[Glenny Palmer]

Hellooo David. I'm having a devil of a time with this pc. It's only an old backup one to the main one that croc had built for me, & was in for a reformat. Our local geek sold to another local....who has blissfully never opened his doors in over 12 months....& who will not respond to communications. So my 'good' (better) pc is being held hostage. Deep sigh. I dunno how long this old one will see me through being able to post on here, but fingers crossed. Anyway........I've had your first enquiry re this issue on the desktop in the vain hope that I could find time & resources to discuss this with you. While I'm making progress with this old house, it is slow....& fraught with chaos....which has seen me being held hostage as well!! Absolutely zero new writing getting done. I'd very much like to speak with you about it so will you pm me your phone number please? (I get free calls to landlines so hopefully you have one of those?)

As to Zondrae's enquiry....in my experience, I was predominantly taught by Charlee Marshall & Carmel Randle. Carmel's book ''Help'' covers the intricacies....thoroughly. But now that she has passed away I'm not sure it is still available. I'd better scoot before this thing self destructs.......... Cheeers.

[Glenny Palmer]

Hail Mary................hope this posts.

For Zondrae: This is an exerpt from my Tutorial 'Unstrained Melody' available on the Home Page under 'Techniques.' You will need to refer to the original there which identifies the stressed & unstressed syllables. (very difficult to do here.)

IMPORTANT: It is of primary importance to be aware of just what syllable a stress
falls upon in a word. I can’t stress this enough.(pardon the pun). A poem may have
perfect meter but still be ‘jarring’ and not work, because a stress has been placed
upon the wrong syllable. Eg. the word ‘upon’. We normally speak this word as
'up-on' (with the ‘on’ being the stressed syllable). We do not say ‘up-on’. If a line is
written with the chosen meter demanding that the stress be placed on the ‘up’ it will
not only sound ridiculous, but will throw the ‘flow’ of the rhythm completely out of
whack. Eg. given that the rest of the example poem below is written in the meter of …
weak-strong-weak-strong-weak-strong etc., see where the stress incorrectly falls, and
how it demands that the stress falls on ‘up’.. if you are to maintain your chosen meter.

‘So, up-on hear-ing this he then de-cid-ed to re-frain
from verb-al-is-ing an-y furth-er thoughts.’

The above example shows what I believe to be one of the biggest problems that poets
struggle with, regarding meter. They may have learned to ‘scan’ their poem, (P4) and
are 100% sure that the meter is correct….but…the poem does not ‘flow.’ It does not
work! Why?? Well this is predominantly the answer to that bewildering issue, from
what I regularly observe.

How do we correct this problem in the above example? (which ‘flows’ perfectly apart
from the ‘upon.’) We re-write that line!

‘So, hear-ing this he then de-cid-ed quick-ly to re-frain
from verb-al-is-ing an-y furth-er thoughts.’
There is always another way to correctly express what you are wanting to convey, if
you are prepared to put in the work to find it.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Glenny, Carmel Randle's sister, Zita Denholm, may have copies of the book.

Zita is a publisher (amongst other things - also a speech and drama teacher), based in Wagga Wagga.

You can contact her via Triple D Books. They have a web-site.

Nice to hear from you again.

[Glenny Palmer]

Many thanks Stephen. Nice 2 b back in touch... albeit under difficulty. I wonder if we can get Admin 2 seek permission to post access details 4 Carmel's book under our 'Techniques' section. It's a very comprehensive tutorial & was/ is of great assistance 2 me. Cheeers.