Most professional poets do know what rhythm is, and many of them have either chosen to use forms that they find to be pleasing, or rejected it as not suiting their needs, much in the same way Picasso ended up using a form of perspective and anatomy that he found to be pleasing and that suited his needs, and thus risked people looking at his paintings and saying, "That dude does not know how to draw." Poetry doesn't always require rhythm, believe it or not.
in rhythmical poems, the grid exists to define the rhythm, and all the skill is in making the words meaningful whilst still retaining the advantages of the grid. See, this just seems arbitrary to me. I mean, there's no doubt that the results can be pleasing, but it's just another gimmick or poetic parlor game that doesn't necessarily convey any layer of meaning. I know there's a tradition of oral poetry that relies on rhythm and rhyme in order to allow the illiterate population to memorize it, but we do have cheap paper and ink now, so...it's not strictly necessary, and we can find new ways to make words mean things.
I remain convinced that modern poetry is a cult of self and mutual hypnosis That's pretty much how I feel about a lot of older poetry, although you haven't given me any idea of why you think rhythm is a necessary part of poetry. I guess it's another thing on which we shall have to agree to disagree ;)
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Date: 2009-05-26 10:47 am (UTC)See, this just seems arbitrary to me. I mean, there's no doubt that the results can be pleasing, but it's just another gimmick or poetic parlor game that doesn't necessarily convey any layer of meaning. I know there's a tradition of oral poetry that relies on rhythm and rhyme in order to allow the illiterate population to memorize it, but we do have cheap paper and ink now, so...it's not strictly necessary, and we can find new ways to make words mean things.
That's pretty much how I feel about a lot of older poetry, although you haven't given me any idea of why you think rhythm is a necessary part of poetry. I guess it's another thing on which we shall have to agree to disagree ;)