Today I’m off to see Lisa Stock read at the Spec Fic Fair in Manhattan. (See April 12th entry.)
I also have to prepare to teach my sf writing class tomorrow at the library. We’ll be reading and discussing fantasy-related poetry and reading excerpts from The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Dianna Wynne-Jones.
Some of the following lines are iambic and others are trochaic. Can you tell the difference?
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak,
The Lotos blows by every winding creek;
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone;
Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs
the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind …
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
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