NPPF - Preliminary - Pale Fire

[Elainemmbell at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/7/2003 9:47:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jasper at hatguild.org writes:

> (someone with better poetry voodoo might explain their purpose, although I
> recall being told it has to do with attempting to guide or ease the reader's
> eye through transitions)

Punctuation and indentation decisions in poetry do function as Jasper 
suggests but also provide the musical timing and cadence of the work.  For instance, 
in Canto One, lines 22-24:

"Reading from left to right in winter's code: 
 A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat:
 Dot, arrow pointing back...A pheasant's feet!"

You can "hear" the stop at :, the quarter-stop at , and the half-stop at: 
followed by the rhythmic stop at the second:  then the actual repeat picks up the 
implied rhythm only to trip into the kind of trill implied by the ellipsis 
rounding up to the double stop at the final !

Whereas in lines 245-246 of Canto Two use the indentation rhythm to make the 
line "Lafontaine was wrong:" the equivalent in beats as the apparently longer 
next line:
"Dead is the mandible, alive the song."  The combination of a long opening 
indent plus a colon stop stretches the line with fewer syllables into the same 
time signature as the longer line.

In my conjure woman's humble interpretation, that is.
Elaine M.M. Bell, Writer
(860) 523-9225
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