Monday, February 28, 2011
I can't hear.
This is the millionth time in a week that I have sat in desk, in my bed, in the hall or in the library. I have read and tried and tested but I still can't hear. Can't hear the highs and lows of metered poetry and especially can't hear to write it. I can hear rhyme or weird breaks but I cannot hear meter. I think I might be dead or not have a heart because I have no sense of da DUM and feel lost, even more than usual. So I continue to sit here, desk light blaring at me, and try to clap out syllables and sounds like a one armed seal. At the beginning of semester this seemed like it would be easiest for me, a standard set of rules and guidelines to follow in the world of poetry that to me seems so free-flowing without rules or regulations. Now I realized this is harder. Writing in meter is taking something so fluid and natural and making it work within a set guideline. So now, I'm going to back to writing my best effort or metered poetry with rhyme and get ready for the massive revisions I'll get to handle tomorrow with the much needed guidance of class.
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Well, don't get too hung up on it, since as I said in class, you really have to read a lot of metrical poetry to hear it, if you don't do so naturally. That means massive amounts of Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, Pope, . . . . Once you read a lot of it, you'll start hearing it. So again, don't despair.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting because I am having this same problem. Writing in meter has been I think one of the biggest challenges for me. Every chance I get I try to play with it in hopes o figuring it out. The funny thing is I still don’t know if I am doing it correctly, but I can feel myself progressing with it. Don’t feel like your alone because people such as, myself also struggle with it. =)
ReplyDeleteI forgot about the blog assignment and just decided to check it out and when I did, I was glad to see that other people were struggling to hear the beats in the poems. I have found that the more times I read a poem with meter, I can begin to start to hear it, but it's very difficult on the first few readings. I also found that writing in meter is even more dificult, I struggle to form my thoughts into meter. As I fight with creating the meter, I find myself forcing a statement into meter and making it work in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI am very relieved to see that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I struggled with the in class exercises that we have done with meter; everything about it is confusing; identifying the different variations, wondering how I can possibly keep one going throughout a given piece of writing, etc. I have tried to take some of my recent Muse work and put it into meter. I'm still having some difficulty, but for me the thing that works the best is practice. I compare all of the exercises I've done, and I'm noticing that I"ve only progressed with each attempt. I hope you're feeling that way as well.
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