Rhythm and Rhyme Workshop

James Midgley United Kingdom (12/22/2004 12:56:00 PM)

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How absurd. If 'old is gold' then surely the very first grunts of poetry - which were undoubtedly freeverse - would be the best? Strict form promotes flaccidity and verbosity, not to mention syntactical abnormality and forced lexis for the sake of metre. All forms are new at some point - age is not an indication of refinement by any means. I would love to see someone try and recreate Eliot's dystopian, modernist wasteland in something as ridiculously unfitting as strict metre. Times and attitudes change, and so does language. Poetry must also change.

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Dr. A.celestine Raj Manohar Md (2/5/2005 6:40:00 PM) Post reply
Although, I say that 'old is gold', not that one is averse to trying modern trends and innovations.The point is though poetry must and will change with the march of time, the beauty of poetry present in the yester-years' compilations and compositions cannot be sacrificed.The yester-day poets wrote poetry all life and it was their livelihood while what today's poets do generally is as a pastime and a hobby! So, you will certainly find that the modern developments are NOT as good as the older ones, be it classical poetry or Free verse of yester-years and could always be inferior to the earlier ones.Your idea regarding Eliot's work is a good and challenging one.may be, I may try it!

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