[New-Poetry] Re: Scanned

[Anny Ballardini]

Since you mention your MFA I remember I could let my scanning pass only when
(definitely cunning from my side) I googled till I found the poem to be
examined, scanned by an authoritative voice and I included the source. I
even had a problem with syllabic poems and at that point I showed I had
consulted the dictionary word by word. (!!!)



On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 7:33 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> All true, but it gets complicated fast, no?  For the point at which I
> personally think "too many variations" is likely not the same point at which
> Robert Frost does, or Alexander Pope, or Richard Wilbur.  There are moments
> in Frost's blank verse poems, for instance, where it seems that any line of
> oh, 9 to 13 syllables with a couple iambs in it, can "count."
> Plus the fact that educated ears nonetheless will frequently hear stress
> differently in any given line.
>
> I first came to these conclusions many years ago after I made a little
> post-graduate project of boning up on prosody, realizing that my MFA program
> required absolutely no attention to the subject.  So I read many of the
> accepted major texts, and soon discovered (a) a great deal of certainty of
> tone, and (b) frequent disagreement, expert to expert, on just about
> EVERYTHING.
>
> Having said all this, I will, of course, defer to the actual experts among
> us (Sam?) on most matters.  But that won't alter my opinion that the degree
> to which many prosodists sound sure of themselves is often in proportion to
> how highly contested things are.
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
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> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
> On May 3, 2009, at 12:22 PM, TheOldMole wrote:
>
> Yeah, but if you start with the premise of an accentual-syllabic line,
> can't you then chart the variations from that pattern? And at a certain
> point (which may change from reader to reader), aren't you going to say "too
> many variations -- this just doesn't scan"? Or "too many places where the
> accent wants to fall on the wrong syllable -- this just doesn't scan"?
>
> David Graham wrote:
>
> I've never seen the experts agree on *any* specific scansion, I don't
> think.  Which doesn't mean it's utterly arbitrary:  if someone calls a 5
> syllable foot an iamb they're just wrong.  But there is so much
> disagreement about allowable substitutions (how loose is too loose); what
> individual ears hear as stress; matters of regional accents; changes of
> taste over time;  etc., that scansion often *seems* purely arbitrary.  Not
> to mention the many competing systems of gridding-out metrics. . . .
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu <mailto:grahamd at ripon.edu <grahamd at ripon.edu>>
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
> On May 3, 2009, at 12:02 PM, Chris Lott wrote:
>
> I'm curious about this-- can our resident experts come to agreement on
>
> the scansion of Baer's poem? Or is the whole process really as
>
> arbitrary as it feels?
>
>
> c
>
>
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-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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