Thursday, October 06, 2005

Maradydd's Comment

[info]maradydd is a gifted poet and also a computer scientist. I've always had a special place in my heart for her 24 Hour Hotline sestina. A sestina has a regular meter, but rather than rhyming in the usual way, all the line-ending words of one stanza show up as line-ending words in the next stanza. It's a hard, but somehow hypnotic form.

The other day she left me a rhyming comment on an older post. I figure no one saw it, but I loved it. So here is her comment:
*****

As a formalist I find there's little sweeter
Than poems which follow strict rhyme and meter.
The easiest way to bring me to tears
Is inflicting cracked rhythm upon my ears.

But poetry written in your fashion
Strikes me as very much Ogden Nashian,
And although writing like it is something I myself find very draining
I'm not complaining.

*****
Part of what I like about it is the way she first says this isn't her way of writing, and then effortlessly knocks off a perfectly phrased example. Also, rhyming "Ogden Nashian" with "fashion" is just so... Ogden Nashian.

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