[New-Poetry] from the Writer's Almanac

[Chris Lott]

On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:16 AM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Chris,
> I keep wondering why it's such a well hidden secret that scansion depends
> upon the scanner for the scanner's ear and eye and brain's response
> to/interpretation of the poet's words?

It's not a secret. But it means that when person A posts a poem and
person B says "it doesn't scan" then person B's response is rather
meaningless, no?

> Fiercesome battles have ensued about scansion and its supposed
> only-one-way-of-reading authority.  Yes, of course I'm OTTing about it here,
> and do welcome hearing others' views.  It's just that so few folk recognise
> scansion's role as a wonderfully useful *variously-applied* medium.

I'm still looking for the wonderfully useful part, I guess. Maybe
lines 2 and 6 of Baer's poems scan to one or maybe they don't. What
difference does it make?

c