The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry » Topic: Ode Less Traveled Poetry

The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry » Topic: Ode Less Traveled Poetry http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry Just another bbPress community en-US Tue, 21 May 2013 20:17:22 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/search.php Senex72 on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-291207 Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:50:20 +0000 Senex72 291207@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ <blockquote><cite>Senex72 <a href="//www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-290513"">said</a>:</cite> Just to say re: Journal of Ordinary Days I know about ree verse; which I suspect came in around 1380 However, looking again I think this poem is a sad immitation of Bridges lengthy Triumph of Beauty: written with 12 syllables to a line and no regard to stress or rhyme-pattern. What a clever girl to know these obscurities! <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_neutral.gif" title=":|" class="bb_smilies" /> SoI answer my own query it seems, and drop out.</blockquote> Senex72 on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-290513 Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:26:12 +0000 Senex72 290513@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ Just to say re: Journal of Ordinary Days I know about "free verse", which I suspect came in around 1380 with Wycliffe's Psalms, just before Chaucer's iambs; but that has rythm, stress, rhymes - Eliot for example with a sort of chorus "Hurry up please it's time", or again in Hollow Men: and a seriousness as a communication; or it stands against a bakground of poetic traditiion (look at Eliot's notes). It is not just narrative prose withg neologisms and fancy type. Wouldn't this one have been better as a ballad? "Come listen dear poets come listen to me, A tale of a biro I'll tell,,,"At least an attempt at form would distill the narrative meaning, of which I guess here there isn't much beyond the mushroom words! Senex72 on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-290475 Sun, 13 Jan 2013 02:11:21 +0000 Senex72 290475@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I am learning from thus excellent book, or rather basking in its unfolding knowledge. I have come up against my limitations though. I looked at the much-puffed Vahni Capildeo JOURNAL OF ORDINARY DAYS I. Do I look like the sort of person who’s not fit to go out and buy a pen on her own? The phrase “May I borrow a biro” is unspeakable for its vocalic ugliness. The task in hand, this third daze of work, is dis- and rearranging, suspecting, assessing, keying in and tagging all the historical spellings of the verb QUIT. “That can’t be a lot? QUIT is such a little verb?” But people have been quitting for centuries, and especially in Scotland, all in different ways. So this third daze I break from work to buy a pen. Let it be an ethical biro. I set out for the fair trade Quaker shop. The assistants talk more than I do, showing me pens two fingers thick encrusted like scary rhinestoneri charging pink-purple, delivering jabs in the eye to mass-produced-capitalist-consumerist- conformity. But not suitable to be housed in the zoo of QUIT. Sorry, silent, cash intact, I look elsewhere, and not far off the ordinary rewards this initiative: sell-it-all, old-fashioned, like nineteen fifty-three. nearly customer-free, a newsagent of the English variety. The cardboard cradles for goods on these shelves wouldn’t aspire to store shoes, let alone to be reborn as cut-out stars for a wonky schoolhouse mobile. With reverence for age, I abstract a biro not quite dried up. I softfoot over to the queue. So form a line of one, outnumbered by cashiers. The older assistant keeps things under control. But can’t seem to stop his helper singing singing Singing to him lovingly in a high-pitched tone, “I’m going to put you in chains and take you home. I’m going to put you in chains and take you home.” Neither raises his voice; nor does the one quiet down. In a queue of one I shall queue, change in hand, wait, queue in a queue of one, however long it takes. Anything is better than going back to QUIT. I can buy a pen on my own. I’m fit. I thought anapaests, truncated etc , some iambs, but really can't make much sense of it metrically. One critic writes "Much of her poetry reads like prose, which in fact it is" and another comment is her inability to escape her solipsism. Can anyone help please?If not, is it worth publishing as poetry rather than autobiographical snapshota <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_eek.gif" title="8O" class="bb_smilies" /> ? Graeme W on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-285399 Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:00:13 +0000 Graeme W 285399@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I have just started reading The Ode Less Travelled and I am really enjoying it. I have got as far as the first few exercises and had a go. The results can be seen here: <a href="http://mypoetryandstories.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/twenty-four-lines-in-iambic-pentameter.html" rel="nofollow">http://mypoetryandstories.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/t.....meter.html</a> ArleneA on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-282787 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:08:51 +0000 ArleneA 282787@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I was right about the kindness shining from Stephen's eyes. After reading the first few pages of his autobiography, ie. the part where he is on the train heading to the boarding school. Bless him, even at the tender age of 8 he is showing kindness. I am referring to when he is being considerate to a rather nervous 'new boy' (Bunce) going to be starting a term at the said boarding school. How nice of him to do that:) ArleneA on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-282729 Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:12:00 +0000 ArleneA 282729@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ A friend treated me to Stephen Fry's Autobiography today (as I have been 'raving' on about him a lot lol) It is the first autobiography entitled "Moab is my Washpot". Oh my goodness I cannot wait to read this book. I just love the letter he wrote to himself at the age of fifteen, not to be read until he was twenty-five:- "Well I tell you now everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be. Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat." God I love that:) I must go and start reading this book. Before I leave this earth, I want to waltz into Waterstones one day and there on the shelf I want to see my book. That is my dream:) ArleneA on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-282567 Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:23:20 +0000 ArleneA 282567@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ This is just a quick little comment about poems; I, from time to time, scribble little poems/odes and well I always feel like the lines have to rhyme in some way; or I feel like I have failed lol....but a poem does not need to rhyme so I don't know why I feel this way but I always have to make it rhyme! poeticnerd1990 on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-281215 Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:11:05 +0000 poeticnerd1990 281215@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I just checked this book out of the library, and my mom and I are reading it together! <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_biggrin.gif" title=":D" class="bb_smilies" /> gnu on "Ode Less Traveled Poetry" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/ode-less-traveled-poetry#post-263357 Sat, 29 Jan 2011 21:57:49 +0000 gnu 263357@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ Be sure to read the new review of Stephan Fry's poetry book , The Ode Less Traveled. at <a href="http://newpoetryreview.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://newpoetryreview.blogspot.com/</a> The New Poetry review Cafene