(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2010 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionTwelve books to read, a paper to write for an unfinished class, then applications. And whatever Christmas entails. And domestic bliss to hold my end of up.
Short book suggestions welcome. I might finish Don Juan? When I read it it infects me. Started an ottava rima journal this last time, managed seven stanzas before everything stopped for Apocalypse Move:
These very words inaugurate my journal.
You, reader, read what I, the writer, wrote,
And what I write, you read, may prove eternal,
Though all futurity should take no note,
By replication kept forever vernal
On numberless machines our kids devote
To storing up lost, unsought pasts of data -
Just in case some need should come up later.
My stanza, you'll have guessed, 's ottava rima,
Made popular in Early Modern Italy,
Which English poets later came to deem a
Not unfit form for verse. Bigly or littlely,
For epic or for fun, that is, a theme o'
Love or sober thought, drummy or fiddle-y,
The stanza flexed to fit most any function,
And so I dust it off without compunction.
Yeats used it well, and Browning too - Keats poorly,
To riff on old Boccaccio, the rapscallion.
Shelley used it beautifully and surely,
Wordsworth just to translate from Italian
Some bits of Ariosto's poem. Less purely,
In German, Goethe told of how his stallion
Drooped pining for his mare - whilome so fiery,
Though fetching fillies neighed nigh - in his Diary.
You'd think that it was that inspired Byron,
The (Anglo) top practitioner of the form,
But there's no sign it entered his environ -
For export Goethe's poem was...rather warm.
It took a poem by Frere to heat the iron
And make in that Lord's head the octaves swarm.
Stendhal, though, claims a Roman, name of Monte,
Wrote poems like Beppo, Byron's first racconte.
But be that as it may, it doesn't ruin
His absolute achievement in the vein:
The sixteen-point-two canto tome Don Juan,
To criticize which I would deem insane.
The horse of art he broke with that's a new one,
Which, though no flier, flashed across the plain
With speed and grace and dazzle heretofore
Unknown in verse - known oft (confess!) to bore.
Lord Byron was a master entertainer,
But something always kept his genius muted
Until she kicked off all that would restrain her
(Imagine what yours might be like if you did!).
The eight-line stanza freed a larger, saner,
Relaxed, though rapid, strain, which fully suited
The Man inside - until then, who much better
Than in his poems was seen in any letter.
Sleepiness is weighing on my rhyming,
And though imagination's freed by sleep
In dreams, before we dream we lose our timing,
Vocabularic reach, and sense to keep
Our purpose straight. When in the state that I'm in,
One's stanza melts and sinks into the deep
Of its own liquid foundering. And so,
To you: adieu! Me too. To bed I go.
It's hard to know what to do with ottava rima past describing ottava rima.
[Turns out this was my 1000th entry.]
Short book suggestions welcome. I might finish Don Juan? When I read it it infects me. Started an ottava rima journal this last time, managed seven stanzas before everything stopped for Apocalypse Move:
These very words inaugurate my journal.
You, reader, read what I, the writer, wrote,
And what I write, you read, may prove eternal,
Though all futurity should take no note,
By replication kept forever vernal
On numberless machines our kids devote
To storing up lost, unsought pasts of data -
Just in case some need should come up later.
My stanza, you'll have guessed, 's ottava rima,
Made popular in Early Modern Italy,
Which English poets later came to deem a
Not unfit form for verse. Bigly or littlely,
For epic or for fun, that is, a theme o'
Love or sober thought, drummy or fiddle-y,
The stanza flexed to fit most any function,
And so I dust it off without compunction.
Yeats used it well, and Browning too - Keats poorly,
To riff on old Boccaccio, the rapscallion.
Shelley used it beautifully and surely,
Wordsworth just to translate from Italian
Some bits of Ariosto's poem. Less purely,
In German, Goethe told of how his stallion
Drooped pining for his mare - whilome so fiery,
Though fetching fillies neighed nigh - in his Diary.
You'd think that it was that inspired Byron,
The (Anglo) top practitioner of the form,
But there's no sign it entered his environ -
For export Goethe's poem was...rather warm.
It took a poem by Frere to heat the iron
And make in that Lord's head the octaves swarm.
Stendhal, though, claims a Roman, name of Monte,
Wrote poems like Beppo, Byron's first racconte.
But be that as it may, it doesn't ruin
His absolute achievement in the vein:
The sixteen-point-two canto tome Don Juan,
To criticize which I would deem insane.
The horse of art he broke with that's a new one,
Which, though no flier, flashed across the plain
With speed and grace and dazzle heretofore
Unknown in verse - known oft (confess!) to bore.
Lord Byron was a master entertainer,
But something always kept his genius muted
Until she kicked off all that would restrain her
(Imagine what yours might be like if you did!).
The eight-line stanza freed a larger, saner,
Relaxed, though rapid, strain, which fully suited
The Man inside - until then, who much better
Than in his poems was seen in any letter.
Sleepiness is weighing on my rhyming,
And though imagination's freed by sleep
In dreams, before we dream we lose our timing,
Vocabularic reach, and sense to keep
Our purpose straight. When in the state that I'm in,
One's stanza melts and sinks into the deep
Of its own liquid foundering. And so,
To you: adieu! Me too. To bed I go.
It's hard to know what to do with ottava rima past describing ottava rima.
[Turns out this was my 1000th entry.]
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 04:34 am (UTC)I would not object strongly if you used it for everything. (I know of people who blog in sonnets, but there's room to waffle in a sonnet.)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 06:11 am (UTC)Implausibly, I've read a number of Vorkosigan books. Bujold was one of my father's favorite writers. When I was a kid he took me to a science fiction convention (she lived nearby) to hear her speak, and parked me with her daughter playing Dungeons and Dragons. I think we may have killed an orc. It's possible we got its gold piece.
Wasn't really in my line though. Till he died he kept handing or sending them to me and I'd quietly give them to thrift stores.
We even read to him from Cetaganda as he was unconscious and dying last year.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 06:21 am (UTC)Bujold's really functional for me, mostly because things that qualify as a comfort read without making me loathe the author are kind of rare.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 06:06 am (UTC)Best I can do late, on the fly....
Date: 2010-12-05 06:44 am (UTC)To sell itself, and so it must describe
The very thing that should be just admired
(As I do yours); so form and content jibe,
At least at first. Just like a car hot-wired
By kids who've smoked a bit, also imbibed
A drop or two, it may at first seem iffy
But they say it will start in just a jiffy.
And then it does! You drive the darkened street,
And think a cruiser watching each STOP sign,
Alert to stop and ticket the elit-
Ist college kids who're high on grass, and wine,
And their contempt for cops on any beat
Besides what structures the iambic line,
Though nothing could be farther from your mind
Since all you want's to leave that school behind.
And so you follow driving rules with care
Until you merge onto the interstate
Which roars you don't know whence, you don't know where.
Your driving, heretofore,'s been quite sedate
(Just shady lanes, when grandma wants some air)
But now the needle's pushing 88,
As grandma did but then, alas, she died,
Condemned forever now to stay inside
Which makes you want to burn the rubber more
While you still can, and go where the road takes you --
And so you push the pedal to the floor:
The other kids are scared. "For all our sakes!" you
Hear them start to scream, then yelling more and more,
"Please, please slow down," till reason overtakes you:
Overtaken, overheated, overpulled
(Onto the shoulder) you complain they've bull-
Ied you -- well they can leave the car and walk:
It's not that far to go, but as for you
You're driving onwards (Feel free to mark with AWK
All formulations here that seem askew) --
Put up or shut up -- no more idle talk,
Or idling engine: time to start anew,
Explore the vehicle, forget its tenor,
Start driving like a pro, not a beginner.
So where you'll go's unclear, but that's the point.
The things hot-wired, the cops are on your tail.
The thing to do is roll another joint --
If you're arrested someone will make bail,
Some forgotten free verse will anoint
The Chance Card that lets you out of jail
For free, for sure, and then there's that Free Parking,
That passing Go, and back to all the narcing
That keeps you honest, sane, and sober, sad,
And writing prose or free verse just like prose.
But in the meantime, while you can, be bad
And take the form and go now where it goes.
Forget the explanation -- just be rad,
And trust the rhyme, and know just what it knows:
The unthought, unexpected new directions
That fill our normal space with strange dimensions.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 07:27 am (UTC)It lately seems I do to be outdone,
As here by you. But since I'm kept unbored
(And wondrously), I calculate I've won.
Me, I'm just an awed disciple, and...
Date: 2010-12-05 03:18 pm (UTC)'Nine different ways to say "I love you Grandma"'
Date: 2010-12-05 08:37 am (UTC)Re: 'Nine different ways to say "I love you Grandma"'
Date: 2010-12-05 03:19 pm (UTC)And recall our notional project: The Oxford Book of Parties!
We could do it as an LJ-community, no?
Re: Best I can do late, on the fly....
Date: 2010-12-06 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 03:30 pm (UTC)Then let the sickness through you rage and rage.
For gladly will I read your versed perfection,
And follow your ottova from page to page!
Have you ever encountered Vikram Seth's Golden Gate? He wrote it using the Onegin stanza and, like Pushkin, created a novel in verse. I started reading it some years ago and could never really get into it. Still, you might at least be interested in checking it out (if you haven't already, that is).
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 05:09 pm (UTC)So, uh: use it as a model of What Not to Do?
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 03:08 am (UTC)Your project is sort of the inverse of Borges' reviews of imaginary books. But I do kinda like the thought: ideally, such a time-saver! Would also serve as a book of object lessons for would-be artists.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 04:52 pm (UTC)Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead.
Wittgenstein's Nephew.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 05:03 pm (UTC)I think I might finish Vanishing Point first, see what I even make of Markson. So far reads like the Oxford Book of Srambled-Order Ironic Genius and Holocaust Anecdotes.
Who Was Changed = amazon lookup then library.
wittgenstein's
Date: 2010-12-05 05:13 pm (UTC)I agree about Markson. But I haven't read Wittgenstein's Mistress and I believe both grashupfer and nightspore admire it.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-05 07:16 pm (UTC)Milorad Pavic
Date: 2010-12-06 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 02:08 pm (UTC)A stanza on pronunciation
Date: 2010-12-06 05:00 am (UTC)The way you did, and Byron did: not "Juan."
I've taught a lot of students, never knew one
Who didn't first assume it rhymed with "John."
"The Spanish name, the English rhyme?" Eschew one,
And trust the rhyme which follows hard upon.
Some think demanding English rhymes despotic,
But I'd pronounce this quest to rhyme "quixotic."
no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 06:23 am (UTC)Since no one's hardly heard of him or his.
Or is it nearby Mexico what done it?
Spanish it was once that Spanish is
Again. Moliere's "Don Zhuan"? Pah, we shun it.
And Mozart's just heard in the opera biz.
How'd I know Byron's? Here is how it's done:
You read the first six lines of Stanza One.
The history of mispronunciation
Is quite a lot of histories at once.
I just don't want (within core education)
This made much of - nobody is a dunce
Because they don't know all the ways their nation
Fucked up what now we fuck up different. Hunts
For keeping foreign foreign scamper on...
Since in the end it's actually "Dohn Khwannn."