Sunday, September 30, 2007

6. WINE BOWL'S LINES

H.D., Hilda Doolittle, used her own non-traditional form of writing to write "Wine Bowl." She uses a lot of quick simple lines, about a thought per line. H.D. breaks the lines often in a short 93 lines poem. She uses a lot of different techniques throughout the poem to create her own image. When she lists multiple things, she divides them up into a line per item as in "a Centaur, a Nymph, and a Faun;" (lines 11-13).
H.D. uses different forms of repetition. She begins and ends the poem the same; the first 9 lines are also the last 9 lines of the poem. Also, she repeats “in my skull, where the vision had birth, will come wine, would pour song” (lines 27-30) and lines 37 through 40 but changing “had birth (line 28) to “took flight“ (line 38). Though she follows the repeated lines with foil thoughts, first stating “of the HOT earth” (line 31) and in the latter “of the COOL night.” H.D. used a contradiction in her own writing, first repeating the same thought trailed by two opposite lines.
This poet breaks the lines by every different thought, action, or object. This helps the meaning of the poem by giving a lot of little information, almost as if she was forming a list. This creates a montage of a poem centered on wine. The meaning of the poem is about her drinking the wine. That is why she uses the repetition, opening and closing with the same thought. Then everything in between makes up center of that one particular experience for her. Though it is a single event, many thoughts and feelings she is reminded of.
Poets break up lines in their own fashion to create their own individual style. The style might be a list, a song, or a single thought or image. When poets use this form of free style is opens all the barriers of traditional poems and creates a new form that is identifiable with them or that particular poem.

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