Stephen Fry's comments on free verse, UK Observer Newspaper article link Options

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Well known writer, actor, media personality and intellectual Stephen Fry has a new book out about poety.

This link is to an article in the Observer Sunday newspaper last weekend where he says what he thinks about free verse.

WARNING: Mr Fry does not mince his words: some of his language is a little coarse (however, if a highly respectable and popular Sunday broadsheet can carry it nationally I assume MM can)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...1593317,00.html

I'd be very interested in hearing what everyone thinks of his comments.

My own first response is - if free verse is emotional self-gratification, then form is merely the intellectual counterpart of the same thing.

Growling  :dragon:

Fran

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Don,

Swish away!

Yes, of course there are always bad and good people doing anything. Agreed.

I am far from convinced that poetry is declining. It used to be spoon-fed in schools (like much else) and now no longer is. We no longer expect pupils to be able to rote-learn and recite great chunks os little-understood poems.

But - look at the myriad od poetry sites on the Net. Look at all the people reading / writing / debating poetry. It seems to me that poetry has seldom been as alive as now and as democratised. (And poorer people have more time to think and write in general - though not everyone).

I don't accept that literature is waning either. More books (fiction and non-fiction) are read than ever. More is written and more people can read. The publishing industry is vast. Some writing / reading is poor art some very good (though I have no intention of drawing that line!) but with more people involved there are bound to be more popular choices, too.

So, I would argue that reading and writing - poetry and prose - are flourishing as never before in human history.

To me, writing in form (or freeform) is a craft, not an art. The words employed, the pictures painted and so on are the art. In t'other words, adhereing to a form (or choosing the right line-lengths in freeform) is like a sculpter being accurate with marble. It is what s/he makes with that material and the skills that is the art.

Toodle Pip, James.