3. Compression of time

I listen to the Reaper: “Whether a narrative poem is 4600 or 46 lines long, the poet must handle the passage of time in far less space than prose would require. This restriction demands the poet’s restraint in choice of language. A rhythm is necessary, too, one that arises out of the story. No matter how the poet captures it, in meter or typography, rhythm is movement, movement is time, and time must be compressed."

I’m loving these radio introductions. Television is visual, but radio is words. Although, I’ve been watching the Seinfeld DVDs, and that show I think is both. Of course there’s the physical comedy of Kramer, a genius of that particular kind of body language, but the dialog between George and Jerry comes straight out of vaudeville, via radio, past Abbot and Costello, to Monk’s Diner.

HHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY AABBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTT!! Here’s quatrains 10 & 11 from the serialization of "Jules Chauvin, Ferryman in Exile."

But that’s enough. If there was any force
he saw as friend, then this sun-weathered will
was one. Of all New England, only Jack
grasped anything of Calvin, Canada,

and why such distance circumscribed the two.
Too many whiskeys one extended night
enlightened Jack to Calvin’s narrative
of love and desolation, woods and blood.