larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (greek poetry is sexy)
[personal profile] larryhammer
It's been a while since I've used this tag, and this needs to be seen to be believed:

Bob and Bill See Canada by Alfred Uren, in which a pair of anthropomorphic Nova Scotian rabbits tour the rest of the Dominion, in rhymed verse.

Crashing, hard-rhymed, heavy-metered,* monotonous verse in which the author** lets his form control his content, such as padding out lines to make the rhyme and reciting banal details just because he can get them to rhyme -- both to the detriment of his pacing. He also lets his didactic purpose (educating the childrens about their fine country) control the story, such as it is.

I admit, I seek out bad poetry, but this is more painful than entertaining in its badness. I also admit, I am curious about the reactions of Canadians here to passages describing locations you're familiar with, and not just because I wish to share the pain.


* Not that heavy meter always keeps the author in his meter -- the strong stresses make his irregular lines stand out all the more.

** I hesitate to call him a poet, and I am usually very generous with this title.


---L.

Subject quote from "Sonnet to a Young Married Lady Possessed of a Freehold in the County of Sussex," Hilaire Belloc.

Date: 27 February 2018 10:06 pm (UTC)
owlectomy: A squashed panda sewing a squashed panda (Default)
From: [personal profile] owlectomy
The use of French Canada as colorful fun local color without political context is fairly annoying, but not outside what I would expect for a text written in the 1920s for English Canadians. The description of Montreal is... there's nothing that feels wrong or incorrect, but it's so bland that it could be any large commercial/financial city.

Date: 28 February 2018 03:41 am (UTC)
genarti: Knees-down view of woman on tiptoe next to bookshelves (Default)
From: [personal profile] genarti
Yeah, that was my reaction too. The period equivalent of "yep, you sure did look up a few landmarks on wikipedia." In Quebec City I can at least picture the places he's talking about and the kind of touristing ramble through them one does, but in Montreal it's like, "Here is a large city! The city is proud of these two (2) landmarks I will name but not describe! And now, an entire stanza about the car running out of gas."

(Not Canadian, but currently living in Montreal.)

Date: 1 March 2018 02:36 am (UTC)
genarti: Baby rabbit with tongue poking out, text ":p". ([misc] tiny rabbit says :p)
From: [personal profile] genarti
Nor good animal writing, for the hat trick!

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