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From: will.dockery@gmail.com (W.Dockery)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,alt.arts.poetry.comments
Subject: Re: Good poetry essay from G.D.
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:13:41 +0000
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Terry Stomp wrote:

> On Monday, August 2, 2021 at 4:22:26 AM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:
>>
>> A mistake that poets often make is to use the last line of a poem as its
>> title. (I just read another of those tonight; I won't name it, because
>> it doesn't matter whose poem it was.)
>>
>> It's easy enough to make that mistake. A poet ends a poem with a very
>> powerful line. Because it's the best line in the poem, he decides to use
>> it as the title, on the idea that the most powerful line will attract
>> the most readers.
>>
>> Why is it a mistake? Because a line is more powerful if one is reading
>> or hearing it for the first time, and less powerful if one has read or
>> heard it before. Every time a line is reused, it loses power;.if a
>> reader already knows that line, he does not have to concentrate on it
>> but can simply skim through it. (A skilled poet learns to work around
>> that, in poems where fixed lines are obligatory such as the triolet or
>> villanelle), by subtly changing the lines themselves, or using the lines
>> surrounding them to change the meaning of otherwise identical lines.)
>>
>> So: the poet has ended his poem with a powerful line. But he then robs
>> the line of at least some, and possibly of all, of its power. Rather
>> than reading that last line closely, and thinking "A-ha" or "Oh, wow", a
>> reader will skim it and think "Oh, yeah" or "Sure"; which is a much
>> worse way to end the poem.
>
> Good points....!!

Good find, Zod.