I've had writer's block with poems in the past (see below) but I had never experienced it with a novel before, so my recent bout concerning the serial novel I'm posting each Wednesday was a new experience. I had in my mind what the next chapter would concern, but something was stopping me. Turns out that I wanted to leave the setting of the mill too quickly, and more importantly, I didn't want to leave a particular character behind yet. Turns out I like Howard.
Poetry Block
I've been experiencing difficulty writing poems lately. Maybe it's the blogging. Maybe it's the stab at fiction (see above.) Maybe it's the changing of the season. So today I tried an experiment and let the right side of my brain have free rein (see Poetry Experiment #1 below.) It's a little bit free verse and it's a little bit metrical. But it was a lot of fun. I'm not sure about the results though, although last time I checked I still liked it.
Kevin Walzer comments here on my Salemi post:
"Salemi is a crank. He is not just anti-free-verse but anti-modernist in his viewpoint. He represents about the most extreme fringe of the formalist movement that one could imagine.
"If you want a better, more thoughtful discussion of form, look at Dana Gioia's CAN POETRY MATTER, Timothy Steele's MISSING MEASURES, Annie Finch's THE GHOST OF METER and A FORMAL FEELING COMES...all of these speak more eloquently and thoughtfully about form than Salemi's crude diatribes."
Truth be told, I'm a big fan of Timothy Steele's book already. But I'm also a fan of Kevin's book, "The Ghost of Tradition." It's blogfully coincidental that I had been reading Kevin's book last night as well as Salemi's diatribe. If you've never read the book, check it out. It's a well-written analysis of a selection of Formalist poets, among them Disch, Gioia, Gwynn, Martin, Nelson, Salter, Jarman, and Steele.
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