Saturday 5 December 2015

Sound

… I condsider’d a Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakeseperare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage of Rhyming, to be a necessary and indispensable part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself. I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both of cadence & number of syllables.  Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place; the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts, the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosiac, for inferior parts; all are necessary to each other.  Poetry Fetter’d, Fetters the Human Race.  Nations are Destroy’d, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting and Music, are Destroy’d, or Flourish ! The Primeval State of Man was Wisdom, Art, and Science.

From the introduction to Jerusalem, William Blake. June Singer’s Jungian study of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell gives excellent insight into the eidetic perception and spiritual recountings of William Blake – revered and feared for so long, and rightly so!

Sound is uppermost in my thoughts on writing at the moment. David Cooke kindly straightened out a poem I sent him recently, and cited: sound first. The result, below, much improved verse, so durable I cannot prise a knife back into it:

From “Wednesday’s Child”   Originally: Isolation is a bag of tricks//since Tallulah came along. Since then/ my time is hers, and we are slower/ on the uptake while in our minds/ true love unwinds in increments,/ 
Becomes: Isolation is a bag of tricks/now Tallulah’s come, since when/my time is hers, and love /unwinds in increments.


Online at SLQ


Wisdom ,Art, and Science. okay then.