For pigeons it is easy to choose; you are better off on a lamppost.
A dull theme for a poem refuses to come to life in the vers libre format, which I have chosen because I thought it best suited to the subject. I decide to make it into a sonnet. The search for the form demands new images. The images lead to new ideas. It all seems to be falling into place. There is a reason for rhyme and scansion and a given number of lines, where you least expect it.
After an hour or so wallowing in The Penguin Book of French Poetry 1820 - 1950, the long plaintive music of the Alexandrine, containing all that is beautiful in the French language, unfolds in my ears.
3 comments:
Should one persist with a dull (your word) theme? I suppose the answer is yes if it's now falling into place. But that was quite a lateral jump; does switching from one format to another happen often? Although one shouldn't try and dismantle butterflies I shall be interested to see what the theme was, assuming you're going to post.
Hooray!
The subject - far from dull - is the current Qarrtsiluni exercise: "to engage, interpret and reinvent classics through your own idiosyncratic and modern sensibility". "Dull" applied to my initial take on this intriguing challenge. So far I am moderately satisfied with my theme now perhaps adequately enlivened.
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