I’ve been writing a review of a small poetry collection, the first review I’ve ever done. I thought I’d finished it. Then I read it again. To my horror, I realised that my third from last paragraph read like this:
He can shift from a simple clarity to reach for a different register, the lyricism that points beyond itself towards some deeper mystery that isn’t ready to reveal itself in more than a glimpse or flash of light.
What a load of guff! I almost sound like a reviewer. I’m just glad I didn’t send it to the editor. Now it has gone and a glass of wine has made me believe that the paragraph I have replaced it with is much better. Always a dangerous assumption.
[You] shift
ReplyDeletefrom
a simple clarity to reach
for a different register, the lyricism that points beyond
itself
towards some deeper mystery [or something like a mystery]
that isn’t ready to reveal
itself in more than a glimpse or
flash of light.
Congrats Rob you just wrote a John Burnside poem! sans crazy indenting of course which is beyond my HMTL
Heh.
ReplyDeleteYou mean I could have been nominated for the Forward Prize (like Burnside) by now if I'd kept writing in that style?
Ah well. I'll just have to stick to being discovered after my death. That's more romantic anyway.
Rob