Saturday, April 17, 2010

Season with Prudence

Some armchair poets of today like to toss in a "doth" or "thee" into their verse here and there. I guess they think it seasons their poem, gives it an aura of something classic. The problem is that the rest of the poem doesn't use the older language patterns, so the occasional "doth", "thee", or "thou" really sticks out like a canker sore on the lower lip.

The best thing that these poets could do, if they want to impart a characteristic to their poem, is study the works of John Milton, John Donne or many of the other medieval era poets to see how they used the language. After all, they wrote in the language of their time, and that, frankly, is what most poets should stick with - the language of their time.

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