But as I was saying, I don't have the terms for this. It's not a structural issue per se; it's not a flow issue -- that's the symptom, not the problem. "Stanza blocking," as opposed "action blocking," maybe? And what to call that stanza-sized story-unit -- "beat"? "event"?
I'd vote for calling it a "stanza." ;-) You've defined the imperative of a stanza very well: not merely one structural unit of so many lines in so many feet with such and such rhymes, but one conceptual unit of content.
Do you know Barbara Herrnstein Smith's book "Poetic Closure"? It's about how poems end, but it may have some useful thoughts about how stanzas end. I should think it would be interesting to force an occasional event ending into the middle or beginning of a stanza for particular jarring effect.
Do you know this little poem by Dan Pagis?
"Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car"
here in this carload i am eve with abel my son if you see my other son cain son of man tell him that i
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Date: 16 February 2006 10:25 pm (UTC)I'd vote for calling it a "stanza." ;-) You've defined the imperative of a stanza very well: not merely one structural unit of so many lines in so many feet with such and such rhymes, but one conceptual unit of content.
Do you know Barbara Herrnstein Smith's book "Poetic Closure"? It's about how poems end, but it may have some useful thoughts about how stanzas end. I should think it would be interesting to force an occasional event ending into the middle or beginning of a stanza for particular jarring effect.
Do you know this little poem by Dan Pagis?
"Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car"
here in this carload
i am eve
with abel my son
if you see my other son
cain son of man
tell him that i