gerard manley hopkins.

Gravel's continuation of Frankie's line of thought makes me think that perhaps it wasn't other forms of entertainment or literature that did in the poem read for "pleasure", but rather the increasing ubiquity of advertising that did it in.

Awwwwwww, shucks.

If the handle weren't already slippery with blood, you could try giving it another twist. ;->

What's wierd is that the poem is so empty of everything else. It never comes together as human speech or articulate thought, but only as a heap of pretty, carved beads, strung together on so weak a thread that two seconds after hearing it you forget it again.

If you're like me, you'll find you cannot have a single thought in your head while that poem is running in your mind. It is just so many movements of the tongue, disguised as speech. It is a puff of breath designed to barely ruffle the complacent mind for a moment or two before dying away to stillness again.

question:

is there any rule of thumb for how to read / understand staggered left-margin justification like this:

wreck of the deutschland yo

?

In the Valley of the Elwy

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

he's marvelous to read aloud

✓

i just read it aloud to tt, guessing where the sprung-rhythm accents would go