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Approach to Briggflatts (Part I)

August 15, 2008 – 4:48 pm

I’m engaged in an experiment. These are preliminary remarks regarding a procedure I’m following while scanning Briggflatts, the verse sonata which represents Basil Bunting’s crowning achievement. My basic stance aligns with Pound and Bunting as expressed in a previous post (Quotations: Rhythm). Some of that post comes from Briggflatts, the poet listening. The foundation is listening. But I’m also messing about a little bit. Once I’ve gotten farther along, the scansion results and analysis will be posted as “Approach to Briggflatts (Part II).”

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By dirk | Posted in Poetry, prosody | Comments (1)

Quotations: Rhythm

August 15, 2008 – 1:35 pm

Quotations regarding rhythm in poetry:

As regarding Rhythm: To compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.
(Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect,” in Literary Essays, pg. 3.)

LISTEN to the sound that it makes.
(Ezra Pound, “Treatise on Meter,” in ABC of Reading, pg. 201)

Poetry and music are both patterns of sound drawn on a background of time.
(Basil Bunting, Basil Bunting on Poetry, pg. 4)

counts beat against beat, bus conductor
against engine against wheels against
the pedal, Tottenham Court Road, decodes
thunder, scans
porridge bubbling, pipes clanking…
(Basil Bunting, “Briggflatts,” II.11 -II.15)

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By dirk | Posted in Poetry, prosody | Comments (2)

Greek Prosody in English

August 8, 2008 – 10:05 pm

I’m working on a combination of pages and blog posts about the subject of Ancient Greek meters (metres) in English. The bilingual form of “meter” is to show respect to my favorite sources of texts, who are British. The Greater Asclepiad is a rhythmic form that I fell in love with the first time I sounded it out. When I lived in my car for a couple of months during the rainy season in Southern California in early 1978, I frequently sat and listened to the rain for hours at a stretch trying to hear the rhythm emerge from the downpour. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s a quick rough sketch in anticipation of later, more detailed posts:

- x – x x – - x x – - x x – x -

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By dirk | Posted in prosody | Comments (0)