[New-Poetry] Re: a dead ear for scansion

[David Graham]

One thing I like about Nims's take on scansion is that he places it  
in context as one way of negotiating a poem's sounds.  Before he gets  
to naming the feet & describing scansion marks, he conducts a very  
sensible analysis of the basics of vowel tones, consonant effects,  
rhyme, rhythms, and so forth.  So by the time he comes to defining a  
trochee it's easy for students to understand how meter is simply a  
traditional way of organizing sound.

When teaching I always like to discuss sound & rhythm in some depth  
before turning to meter.

I think the fiercest arguments I've witnessed in the world of poetry  
have been over scansion.  Given the many competing systems and  
frequently wild disagreements about the fundamentals, I rapidly lose  
interest in arguments that zero in on the "right" way to scan a given  
line or poem.

I'd love to hear more about Fry's book, which I haven't yet seen.


========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
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On Jul 23, 2008, at 10:41 AM, TheOldMole wrote:

> Pinsky's not bad on scansion vs, what you actually hear.
>
> Mary Oliver's Rules for the Dance is a good teachable, readable  
> book on form
>
> Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote:
>> In a message dated 7/22/2008 8:44:22 PM Central Daylight Time,  
>> AlMaginnes at aol.com writes:
>>>
>>> Paul Fussell's book, whose title escapes me just now.
>>>
>>
>> I like /Poetic Meter and Poetic Form/ because it admits up front  
>> that graphic scansion is, at best, a pretty poor way of  
>> illustrating what we ought to /hear/ in a line, not /see/.  That's  
>> why I don't spend much time on scansion in the advanced poetry  
>> course I'm teaching right now.  I use two levels of stress-- u  
>> and / --and tell students about other systems that use three or  
>> four but don't expect them to use them.  For me it just gets too  
>> subjective if you have four levels.
>>
>> Stephen Fry's /The Ode Less Travelled/ is a book that students  
>> like--an very intelligent amateur speaking to other amateurs.
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> ---
>>
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