Sunday, December 7, 2008

O Auntie Em, there's no place like poem


Following up on my comment to a previous poem debunking the notion that "poem" appearing in haiku (or iambic pentameter for that matter) must be pronounced with two syllables, I wrote the lyric below. (Here, rhyme is in play.) I suppose if there is any "rule" it should be: if "poem" appears in multiple places in a particular poem, then a single pronunciation (whether it's one syllable \pōm\ or two \pō'-əm, pō'-im\) should be consistently applied within that poem.

And, as for Auntie Em, it's \an-tē\, not \än-tē\ ! :-)



O give me a poem where the word-rebel roam
Where the queer and the maverick play
There's seldom absurd or discord-i-ant word
And the lines are not void of cachet


Poem, poem on the page
Where the queer and the maverick play
There's seldom absurd or discord-i-ant word
And the lines are not void of cachet



for D.H.

3 comments:

  1. I think there should be a new category for poems that must have 17 syllabubbles. Instead of saying haiku must have seventeen (because that is meaningless to a Japanese person) we should say 'suburban haiku' (or 'american haiku') must have 17 syllabubbles and that would clear up any confusion.
    "old pond
    frog jumps in
    kerplunk."
    Matsuo Basho. (circa 1650)

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  2. There is that 17-syllable form that Allen Ginsburg called American sentence, but that is displayed without line-breaks.

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