Thursday, February 15, 2007

Rooms with views

According to my Dictionary of Poetic Terms (right now I'm nearing the end of "S"), the word stanza comes from the Italian for "stopping place" or "room".

I've thought of stanzas (verse paragraphs, if you will) as "frames", but not inns or rooms.

Inn is a little hard to get one's mind around. Where will the reception desk be, and will there be a bar? Where the sleeping quarters? Does one even want sleeping quarters in a poem? Or alternatively -- would stopping place mean snack bar, bus shelter? A nook, mountain lookout? (That appeals to me.)

Rooms: I like that, creating rooms -- or a series or rooms -- with words. Let's see, how high will the walls be? Will the floors be level with the ceilings? As one walks into house that is the poem, will the rooms get bigger, or smaller, or all stay the same size? And what's a one-line stanza -- a crawl-space?

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