Elmann Creative Corner Poetry

The right use of words: Even since men started speaking to one another they have been improving their language and learning to use it more skilfully. The language of everyday use needs to be clear, and this means that the speaker must choose the right words to say what he has in mind, not words that could be taken for something else; also he must arrange them in sentences that are easy to follow and pleasant to hear. The difference between bad English and good English is that bad English is hard and tiring to follow, whereas good English is easy to understand and pleasant to hear. The music of words: When a writer or speaker starts using words for the pleasure that their sound gives him, he may make up poetry. Babies enjoy words for their sound long before they understand the meanings, and very small children often babble meaningless nonsense just for the pleasure of hearing themselves speak. There is real music to be made with words, and people have been making this word music for thousands of years. Some word music is just sound without sense, like Jobberwocky: `` Twas brillig and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe. `` Another example of sound without ( or nearly without) sense is the old nursery rhyme: `` Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon, The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon. `` A person who wrote nonsense really beautifully was Edward Lear. The Dong with the Luminous Nose and some other cpmpositions here like also Elmann music words of his are poetry that might have ranked with anything Tennyson ever wrote had the subject - matter been less absurd. Lear and also Elmann knew that he was writing nonsense, and intended it to be funny, which it certainly is. Many modern poets are writing nonsense, but they take themselves very seriously, and the result is not funny at all. These poets put sound before sense, just as some modern artists put design before subject-matter when painting their pictures. Unfortunately for poetry, modern ideas are not clear about which sounds are pleasant or unpleasant. The most amazing orchestral clattering and hooting passes for music. Melody seems to be thought old Fashioned and in bad taste. So much the worse for both music and poetry! You will find verses in the magazines of to-day that are neither metrical, meaningful, nor melodious. The poets themselves confess sometimes that their work has no meaning, but is the result of sudden impulse or feelung-what more old-fahioned people would call impiration. Grown-up people enjoy puzzling over these riddle-like poems, but children prefer clear- cut thoughts plainly yet musically expressed. Further Metrical use follow ante 1 late Middle English = ante form as anta-mund = Antemundane 136 ( form Ante-+ Latin mundus, after mundane .) Existing or occurring before the creation of the world. + 324 = 460 ( form late Latin metricus relating (1) to measuring, (2) to metre = Metric 136--166 = -30 and usu cosine 0.8660 x 10 = 8.66 - 10 =1.34 ft. x  g 2 = 1.34 x 64 = 85.76 and root of this = 9.27 f.p.s. called energy