Wednesday, April 19, 2006

pure poetry

Zach Cox's talk at Treadwell's Bookshop - fabulous. Swinburne sounds better read aloud. I love Swinburne anyway. I also agree with most of the points made about poetics. Whilst I write "free" verse, it does contain alliteration, rhythm, symbolism, etc. Just because it does not contain facile rhymes, doesn't mean it's not poetry. But there should be rhythm and alliteration (and there are more meters than iambic bloody pentameter). But gods preserve us from the alexandrine (great in French, doesn't work in English).

Poems that he reads:
The First Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon (Algernon Swinburne)
Hymn to Pan (Aleister Crowley)

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