Stephen Fry on Diction and Poetics Today
As I mentioned previously, I’m working through Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled very slowly to absorb as much wisdom as I can about writing poetry. This week’s post (the final one!) covers Chapter 4 on Diction and Poetics Today.
Most of this chapter is Stephen Fry talking about how poetry has moved him and some of what he considers the most important aspects of poetry (which seems to fall under Diction). He also gives advice for things poets should avoid (chief among them, laziness), suggests habits for poets (aspiring or otherwise), and waxes, well, poetic about the state of poetry today (he’s pretty meh about it).
One of the lines in this chapter that really caught my attention was: “If what you are writing has no quality that prose cannot transmit, then why should you call it a poem?” I think this is useful to keep in mind when you’re writing poetry, and if you’re a poet and a prose writer, an important distinction between the two. I’ve certainly converted poems to stories and vice versa, but in the end, most of them feel much more right in one form as opposed to the other. There are times when a poem tells a story, too, but typically it’s got something clever going on with the language that doesn’t fit as well in prose.
I won’t detail the habits that Stephen Fry recommends for poets; you’ll have to buy the book for that, especially because the short versions of these habits don’t make a ton of sense without his explanation.
In addition to his concluding thoughts on poetry, this chapter is followed by the extensive glossary of poetic terms, which I can see myself returning to in the future.
And thus concludes my deep dive into The Ode Less Travelled. You can find all of my blog posts on this book here.
Next, I’ll probably dive into another book on poetry on a similar schedule, so stay tuned!
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