"I like the longer lines. Re-reading some of Ron Silliman's, Alphabet, James Fenton's Out of Danger, and so many poems in Poetry they are exactly this: "...oceanic. They wash over you like waves, one after another, each of them full of shells and sand and fish and surfboards, sometimes pieces of wrecks and the bodies of sailors. The long line is more conclusive and inclusive than the partial, subdivided short line. If short lines are like quick pants, long lines resemble great, deep breathes...."
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Scribble Camp
Feb 6
I left this comment on jparker's Hunger Strike recently. Think the quote and article are worth your time.
I left this comment on jparker's Hunger Strike recently. Think the quote and article are worth your time.
There are poems that beg themselves into short lines, like sticky rice at the bottom of the begging bowl. And there are poems that need all the words it has and can get to round out the form of mouth, tongue and sound in one's head.
And a good understanding of what revision really is.