reply to Annie Finch on WOMPO
Free verse and open-field verse is clearly more visual in appeal, dependent on typography, and metered verse more audial (is that a word?) in appeal, more dependent on hearing.
> Isn't this pretty much assumed to be self-evident by most
> readers/poets?
Well, I've written a lot of free verse, poetry of the field, and digital poetry which queries that supposition.
[Thus when I am called a "page poet" or a writer writing "verse that print bred" I tend to take the comment as an insult.]
While the generic left-justified free verse poem has very little that appeals to the eye or engages the eye in a meaningful way, it is a common observation that lines and stanzas are often broken by appearance rather than anything inherent in the poem or reading of it (like breath or something).
And I would also observe that rhymed and metered poems when written in service of "plain speech" seem to be unrhymed and unmetered when read aloud.
Free verse and open-field verse is clearly more visual in appeal, dependent on typography, and metered verse more audial (is that a word?) in appeal, more dependent on hearing.
> Isn't this pretty much assumed to be self-evident by most
> readers/poets?
Well, I've written a lot of free verse, poetry of the field, and digital poetry which queries that supposition.
[Thus when I am called a "page poet" or a writer writing "verse that print bred" I tend to take the comment as an insult.]
While the generic left-justified free verse poem has very little that appeals to the eye or engages the eye in a meaningful way, it is a common observation that lines and stanzas are often broken by appearance rather than anything inherent in the poem or reading of it (like breath or something).
And I would also observe that rhymed and metered poems when written in service of "plain speech" seem to be unrhymed and unmetered when read aloud.
Comments