[New-Poetry] American sentences

[David Graham]

Even that windbag Allen Ginsberg had an interest in brevity &  
possibly concision.  He experimented with what he called American  
Sentences, which are simply 17-syllable sentences indebted to haiku.

There's a pretty interesting web site devoted to the form.  Here is  
Paul Nelson's essay on it:

http://www.americansentences.com/about.html

Kim Addonizio, in her how-to book *Ordinary Genius*, pushes the use  
of American Sentences as a kind of warm-up exercise for students, and  
as discipline in observation.

Here's an example from Ginsberg:

Tompkins Square Lower East Side N.Y.

Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella.







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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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