Science or Art, IP, abab Options

[jgdittier]

Is poetry a science or an art,
its form an inmate's solitary state,
enchained by prose's flavor, naught but tart,
encased in walls of brick or solid slate?

When wisdom rules as commeth forth from mind;
if crystal hard, a mold, no choice allows.
Behold, we've verse of scientific kind,
less choice for guffaws, nor for laughs and howls.

If verse is art, the poet then is free
to entertain us any way his muse
can choose, like Charlie on "Berg's" knee,
and none of Milton's methods man may lose.

May bards e'er be the forces to elate,
humanity's approach to verse, sublime
and pray our minds we vow to never sate
and lose these joys we nurse with beat and rhyme.

note "Berg's" =Edgar Bergin, ventriloquist/humorist,
Charlie McCarthy was his dummy

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Ron... Your cited reply to Sylvia:

>>Having not dabbled much with poetry between the 40's and 2001 I know nothing, absolutely nothing about modern form. Without the structure of rhythm and rhyme I'd have no way to begin and no way to know where I'm going. Often it is the R&R that dictates where the message goes.
This may simply be a way to explain the fact that mostly I lack the psyche of the poet but I believe I do have a penchant for the mechanics of verse writing. That's why I write light, not of love, God, nature, etc. which are true topics for the serious poet.

Ok, understood that. I don't know if it's true or you are better than you claim but I understood it.

>>As I don't generally understand the mindset of the poet writing emotional pieces in free verse, I understand the poet writing emotional pieces in free verse and having had that style taught to him in school doesn't understand my need for the R&R structure.

Sorry, Ron... emm confused. Could you please explain?

I was overjoyed to find that Poe was a perfect case re R&R and a convenient rhyme. Poe fit so well it doesn't look like a forced rhyme, now held in low regard.

A bit sweeping? Who, specifically holds EAP in low regard?

>>I believe the bards of yore

Who are they - or, at least, what (rough) dates are you thinking of?

>>considered forced rhymes as a sometime necessity as the value of R&R was great then.

Why a necessity? If they were very inventive could they not do better?

>>Modern poetry disdains the usage of elisions, inversions, slant rhymes, etc. as now the emphasis is entirely on message and expression.

By "modern poetry," which styles do you mean - surely, "modern poetry" only means almost any style nowerdays. Are we not really in a post-modernist era?

This is interesting but I still think it hard to distinguish between modern (at least in writing dates) and traditioinal forms, insofar as the opportunitirs they offer and the constraints whic they impose.

I don't think that's true. There are many form poems out there which bend meaning and words to fit the form - they do not place message first. Or is that what you meant by "expression"? But is there anything else apaty from meaning and method. What third way would there be, please?

>>Hope I'm not causing eye strain!

emmm :)

Thanks, in anticipation of your clarifications / explanations, Ron - 'tis appreciated.


Cheers, Ron James.