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Peter Whisenant's avatar

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily . . . Life is but a dream, the original goes. Is that what you mean by "Aiding a greater purpose"?

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James Hart's avatar

Very nice, Tom! I'm of a similar mindset. Rhythm in my opinion doesn't have to come from an external source—I see nothing wrong with defining it within the piece itself—but some kind of rhythm has to be the underlying principle if we want the poem to work as well as it can.

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Thomas McKendry's avatar

I agree, I tried to illustrate this point with the poem itself, it doesn't scan with metrical feet but has three accents per line. It was also meant to be a little ironic that a poem dunking on free verse is a little loose metrically. 😉

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Mark Rico's avatar

🔥

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Robert Charboneau's avatar

It took me 10,000 words and you said it better in two stanzas. Masterful. Although I'm not a fan of the hyphens separating the "rows." I remember commas in your draft.

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Thomas McKendry's avatar

Thanks Robert, though I'm expecting another 10k words from Liv any day now 😂 I agree, I think this was a later draft. I was attempting to slow down each metrical caesura, but I think the comma works just as well. 👍

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