tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post8277170219995451411..comments2023-10-31T09:37:59.862-07:00Comments on Rocket Kid Writing: Reading EmersonRachel Dacushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15754712503067644226noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post-41869401556545239982007-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:002007-11-29T08:50:00.000-08:00It's funny that an author should have such a diffe...It's funny that an author should have such a different prose style than poetic style. But perhaps that's only unusual in today's free verse world, as you point out.<BR/><BR/>Poet soaring in prose - perfect description of Emerson. I adore the prose written in the age of oratory. When I was younger, I drenched myself in the prose of Dickens and Henry James, in sentences that covered an entire page, in modifiers and clauses within clauses. <BR/><BR/>Annie Dillard has said if you love words, you're a poet. If you love sentences, you're a writer of prose. Perhaps Emerson loved the sentence more than the word.Rachel Dacushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15754712503067644226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post-35922490143374386642007-11-29T02:39:00.000-08:002007-11-29T02:39:00.000-08:00This is just to expand on the post I deleted:I sai...This is just to expand on the post I deleted:<BR/><BR/>I said: "who do so and seem to"<BR/><BR/>Oops.<BR/><BR/>Drop the "and."<BR/><BR/>I said: "poet soaring in speech"<BR/><BR/>Oops again.<BR/><BR/>Should have said: "poet soaring in prose."zenithfractal5https://www.blogger.com/profile/09518742303537557442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post-8869852918302535532007-11-29T01:53:00.000-08:002007-11-29T01:53:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.zenithfractal5https://www.blogger.com/profile/09518742303537557442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post-90966477013558676772007-11-29T01:47:00.000-08:002007-11-29T01:47:00.000-08:00This resembles a similar puzzlement I've always ha...This resembles a similar puzzlement I've always had with Ray Bradbury. For me, he often soared on Icarus-wings in his prose, but donned a leaden straitjacket when writing his poetry. And in Bradbury's case there's less "excuse" than in Emerson's for not turning to free verse. In Emerson's case, traditional poetic structure was all he could comfortably resort to when writing poetry: it was really the only option in his day for a poet following a conventional career; while in Bradbury's case (living, let's say, post-Whitman, with a Sandburg as an example) it was a reaction to, as he saw it, the license and unmusicality of free verse. I have no problem with poets who want to work in a formalist manner, but it's a shame when some (but not all--I don't go along with a Bukowski: "as the spirit wanes the form appears"--nonsense) who do so and seem to hobble their true voice as a result.<BR/><BR/>Emerson was full of delicious, thrilling sententiousness. I liked "Circles": the passages that begin with "Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series" are ones I go back to and read aloud when I want the taste of his eloquence on my tongue and the arrows of his ideas crossing my mind. But that eloquence which Emerson spends so freely in his essays or speeches just shows how vital the art of oratory was in the 19th century and earlier, when a Robert Ingersoll could command a general audience for three hours on a topic like agnosticism or Whitman or Shakespeare. Now, Ingersoll was a discovery for me; again, here was a poet soaring in speech. I don't doubt that Twain was right, that Ingersoll's speeches are but weak echoes of their actual power (thanks in no small part to Ingersoll's delivery). But what echoes! Strange indeed are the paths of genius!zenithfractal5https://www.blogger.com/profile/09518742303537557442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9144957.post-30179689742134663472007-08-09T22:10:00.000-07:002007-08-09T22:10:00.000-07:00The prose is more like Whitman, whom Emerson prais...The prose is more like Whitman, whom Emerson praised, but, it seems, was unable to emulate. Not and call it poetry, anyway.Glenn Ingersollhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10674475308395975995noreply@blogger.com