tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4334168470477960268.post5135633915827222315..comments2024-03-28T10:23:33.705-07:00Comments on Rogue Strands: Line length and line endings in the digital ageMatthew Stewarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11050474652034142849noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4334168470477960268.post-46112040475739100572021-08-29T06:14:39.875-07:002021-08-29T06:14:39.875-07:00As you say, it's all hugely subjective, though...As you say, it's all hugely subjective, though I do expect a growing "formalist" movement to emerge in the U.K. alongside other current trends, much as it has in the U.S...Matthew Stewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11050474652034142849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4334168470477960268.post-71749123634691203492021-06-06T16:48:02.953-07:002021-06-06T16:48:02.953-07:00I've barely drafted anything with a pen since ...I've barely drafted anything with a pen since I got my first word processor back in the 90s. The one exception was haiku, since I tend to draft them on walks, but now that happens entirely on the phone. I've never given much of a damn about line endings. I'm pleased to think that all this qualifies me as a younger poet. Now if I could just convince my white (and mostly missing) hair of that!Dave Bontahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12157190911655784958noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4334168470477960268.post-84808508361121060022021-06-02T05:03:16.889-07:002021-06-02T05:03:16.889-07:00I agree with you. It's tricky to confirm such ...I agree with you. It's tricky to confirm such suspicions though. If you track the stats from one magazine, you're really tracking the preference of its editors. Best British Poetry ditto. If instead you try somehow to sample all poetry, you need to factor in the fact that much poetry is now read on the [phone] screen, and might be written with that in mind.<br /><br />Plus, as poets die, they'll be fewer editors, judges and tutors who grew in a world where metrics mattered (or at least haunted). Their departure will have a cumulative effect. On Creative Writing courses, fewer presented poems will have scrupulous lines.<br /><br />In passing, I note in the most recent Acumen that Sean Hewitt uses "Short, powerfully propulsive lines whose ending cut against the grain of the syntax" (Edmund Prestwich) and that Levertov liked "writing with precise controlled musical phrasing, related very closely to the breath and its movements" (Fred Beake). To me, the extracts don't match the descriptions - a further obstacle to objectivity.<br />Tim Lovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00578925224900533603noreply@blogger.com