Thanks, Judy. Always glad to get a pat on the head and a dog biscuit. <snicker> Anyway, it turns out the concept "economy of means" is a useful tip I hadn't thought about. I think poetry has inherent economy of means. It's the art of crafting word pictures onto the canvas of one's feelings.
"Poets and writers, artists in general, have time and again given evidence of their desire to get things right. The careful attention they pay to processes of revision, for example, may show that they want their work to meet certain ideas of what it should be like, and that they want it to achieve a most intense effect." http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/bauer02123.htm From a "desire to get things right," I changed the last word in the poem from "land" to "reins." Voila! All at once I have a cool homonym that rhymes with "rain" plus sharper imagery that corresponds with "looting mount." Changing one word in a poem can hit the mark perfectly or bomb. I think my revision is an improvement but then, I could change how I feel about it tomorrow. "But Poetry with rule and order strange So curiously doth move each single pace, As all is marr'd if she one foot misplace," Sir John Davies Orchestra (stanza 93) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : raunchy, I left you a post several days ago saying I thought this was a really terrific poem, but I can't find it now, so maybe it never appeared. If not, I'll say it again. It uses what my English lit prof in college would have called an "economy of means," which she considered a sign of the very best poetry. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <raunchydog@...> wrote : I've been following the news from Ukraine. It's a dark and horrible story that turns my world upside down. I thought we were the good guys cheering democracy and defending freedom not the depraved and desperate police state we've become. The days of Orwell have come to pass. Incessant propaganda manufactures an endless Cold War, shrouds us in ignorance and robs us of our humanity. War Gardens Her knees rest lightly upon the garden floor, Tending heirloom seedlings, Seeds saved for starving children, Seeds sequestered from the war. Bloody war. No one told her why missiles pieced the air, Shattered, scattered, terra-cotta pottery, Burnt orange shards, That cradled hope before the planting. Dead before the harvest. Rising from the rubble, Austerity rides on wings of Poverty, Its looting mount, Hegemony, Laughs as jackboot slavery chokes the land. She had expected rain. ~RD http://www.vanishedamericana.com/wwii/war-gardens-for-victory-world-war-ii/attachment/war-gardens-for-victory-poster/ http://www.vanishedamericana.com/wwii/war-gardens-for-victory-world-war-ii/attachment/war-gardens-for-victory-poster/ Global Austerity and the US War Agenda http://youtu.be/W43wzgLyfSk http://youtu.be/W43wzgLyfSk Global Austerity and the US War Agenda http://youtu.be/W43wzgLyfSk In this stage of advanced globalization, banks earnings and corporate profits continue to soar even as real wages continue to plummet. This does not just... View on youtu.be http://youtu.be/W43wzgLyfSk Preview by Yahoo http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-army-operation-680/ http://rt.com/news/eastern-ukraine-army-operation-680/
