Author Information
Apology To Readers
"Exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pryamiudium altius . . ."
---Horace, Ode 3.30
Recently I have posted several poems that use that ancient Sapphic stanza, four lines---three of eleven syllables, and a fourth which contains---I now know---five, not four, syllables. I have corrected each of my lineage errors, to the best of my ability, and two I have fully reposted (with the term Redux) in the titles. Please advise me of any further errors that you might find.
I post this admission because I have said, in both verse and in comments, that proper spelling and grammar are essential to good poetry. A poem is not just something I care to say, however I wish to say it, about anything I want it to be . . . because my feelings need to be expressed: this is the key to blogging, and keeping secret journals at midnight, not to writing poetry. My respect for the Western Canon---although, admittedly, I am a mere amateur in its presence and grandeur---requires that I correct my compositional errors, while learning from them.
Again, I apologize. I will do my best to ensure that it does not happen again. Poetry is a heritage---its subjects, forms, measures, rhyme schemes, and rules of construction. Like Horace, in the quotation presented above, I have wished to construct a poetic edifice, and I try to follow the precedents of the Western Canon the way an architect follows the postulates and theorems of geometry. Hopefully, the edifice will not be dilapidated or lopsided.
Starward
