Sasha23 Aug 2005

Forgive me if I'm just arguing semantics, but I believe he meant that a poem must make use of both its sound and its sense. That doesen't necessarily mean a pleasant euphony must be sustained. For example when Yeats mentions "all dishevelled wandering stars" he uses cacophony. Also Emanuel di Pasquale does with "The rain hushes the surface of tin porches." Sappho too when she inserts a single cacophonic line into her Greek stanza to immitate the whirr and flap of Sparrow's wings as they draw Aphrodite's heavenly chariot:

ἄρμ' ὐπαδεύξαισα· κάλοι δέ σ' ἆγον
ὤκεες στροῦθοι περὶ γᾶς μελαίνας
πύκνα διννεντες πτέρ' ἀπ' ὠράνωἴθε-
ρας διὰ μέσσω.

Had your carriage yoked in a blink to sparrows
As they drew you quick as a wink above the
Sultry earth, with flaps in a blur, careening,
Down from your cover,

Yes, that's Greek. And I'm a pretentious precocious little fuck