I'm excited that Jim talked to me about the use of silence, because I know from Photography classes that you have to have made some progress before you can start looking at negative space, as used consciously and systematically by, say, Brett Weston.
And iambic pentameter has a distinctive sound---which contributes, for example, to the grandeur of Milton (his politics notwithstanding), see the poem I'm posting today---and still sounds different in every new pair of hands. I'm hoping my ear training with Robert Frost will be effective ... In case I end up sounding anything like this poem below, I get to finally send Jim that postcard he spoke of two years ago---I haven't forgotten about that :)
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On the late Massacher in Piemont
By John Milton
Avenge O Lord thy slaughterʼd Saints, whose bones
Lie scatterʼd on the Alpine mountains cold,
Evʼn them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worshipʼt Stocks and Stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groanes
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that rollʼd
Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans
The Vales redoublʼd to the Hills, and they
To Heavʼn. Their martyrʼd blood
and ashes sow
Oʼre all thʼ Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hunderʼd-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.
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