opinion and stuff

[peccare.livejournal.com]

hey i dont know if this is allowed so feel free to delete it, mods. but i found an interesting blog post over at the guardian, and was wondering what you guys thought.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/07/whats_a_perfect_line_in_poetry.html

whats your idea of a perfect line in poetry? i quite like the 'life like a dome...', but i think the line from lady lazarus that talks about the maggots like sticky pearls is also pretty perfect.

it's so difficult to pick a line that keeps its perfection outside the context of a poem, because often it's perfect due to the leadup, or what comes after it, even.

Comments

[fractalstars.livejournal.com]

I think "I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas" comes close to perfect. It's like a little poem in itself.

There are a few lines in Shakespeare that I thought of, too; "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" from The Tempest, and "Thou hast not half the power to do me harm as I have to be hurt" from Othello. The first has such beautiful imagery and flows wonderfully off the tongue, and the second just always seemed like such a dramatic and powerful line to me.

It's really hard to figure out what it is about some lines that makes them feel "perfect" and able to stand on their own... Interesting article, thanks for linking it. :)

[peccare.livejournal.com]

i love prufrock, but i cant find a single 'perfect line' in it, i think each line is so dependent on the one that came before and the one that comes after. it is so beautiful, though.

[fractalstars.livejournal.com]

Mmm... I wanted to mention the "I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be" line as well, but that one really is strengthened by the rest of the poem that's around it. the same with the final lines about the sea-girls and mermaids.