On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 8:17:00 PM UTC-4,
ashwu...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 7:03:13 PM UTC-4, ME wrote:
> > Rumor Mill
> This is something my Muse can appreciate. Hopefully, NG or Pendragon will review it for any errors-- this deserves to be in its best form.
This is one of those times when writing a poem in perfect textbook English would actually lessen its power.
ME's poem succeeds because of its message -- not because of its skill with manipulating words.
In short, her poem affects us because it feels "real."
Imagine if one were to recast this poem in sonnet form. The artifice of the form would remove the text from reality, whereby the raw power of truth one experiences when reading it would be lost.
The same holds true for setting it in "proper" English. The result would read like a classroom assignment, and not like an accurate depiction of the feelings experience on hearing the news of an ex-lover's/spouse's death.
This begs the question, should realism in poetry entirely eschew grammar rules and poetic form?
The answer is, to a certain degree.
For me, the "litmus test" is whether an awareness of the grammatical errors intrudes upon my initial reading. In this case, they do not.
I would, therefore, leave the poem as it is.