[New-Poetry] Questions on form

[TheOldMole]

Bob Grumman wrote:
> Isn't it standard for inconsequential syllables to drop out of words 
> as languages evolve?  If so, at some point, a two syllable 
> pronunciation of a word like "different"--or "dialect," which I still 
> usually pronounce as three syllables but sometimes as just two--will 
> become "correct."
>
> --Bob
In the case of "different," two syllables have been the standard for a 
while. Here's Shelley, also making "aspire" a two-syllable word:

   Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,
   Pants for its sempiternal heritage,

I think we'd notice it more if a poet stretched the syllable count to three --  which Lord knows, people have done. 
I might even have done it myself at some time. But if you did, you'd have to know you were calling attention to that moment in the line.


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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
  --Corey Ford