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The poetry concealed in books

Reading is one of my hobbies[ as you may already know from my last post]. Personally, my favourite types of books are those that are brimming with visual imagery, and that allow our minds to imagine. I've read Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery-but in as an eight year old. I've been rediscovering this book of late, and have been reading a less abridged version of the book. This book is filled with imagery, and the way that L.M. Montgomery has captured the world around, and put it into writing, is absolutely amazing. In fact, it leads me to believe, that good authors find themselves unconsciously concealing poetry in books.

Here is an extract from the book:
"It was a little,narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill, straight through Mr. Bell's woods, where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white stemmed and lissom boughed ; ferns and starflowers and wild lillies of the valley and scarlet tufts of pigeon berries grew thickly along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and music of bird calls and murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees over head".

Isn't it beautiful? This book has so many descriptions like this, since Anne loves expressing what she imagines. The extract above is not a part of Anne's vivid imaginations, rather it is a description of her beloved "Birch Path". But, if you change a few words here and there, and the order in which things are placed, this paragraph could so easily change into a poem. Maybe it could go something like this:

The Birch Path
It was a little,narrow,
twisting path,
winding down a long hill,
and straight through Mr. Bell's woods.

Here,
the light came down,
sifted through so many emerald screens,
that it was as flawless as a diamond's heart

It was fringed,
in all its length,
with slim young birches,
white stemmed,
and lissom boughed

Ferns and starflowers,
and wild lilles of the valley
and scarlet tufts of pigeon berries,
grew thickly along it

There was always ,
a delightful spiciness in the air,
and the music of bird calls
and murmur and laughs,
of the woodwinds of the trees overhead.

This beautiful,
narrow twisting path,
was Avonlea's very own,
Birch Path

I certainly think that this description fits as a poem and prose. I may have not organized the words exactly how you picture it, but I think that all the descriptions in this book conceal poetry.

If reading is one of your hobbies as well, check out this post I did about book blogs:
Just a great blog...



Comments

  1. Great perspective - the writing is certainly poem-like. But then I started asking myself - what is the difference between poem and prose?
    Need to figure this out...

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a really good question. I'm sure I'll find out something about the difference. But maybe they're both just the same thing, structured differently.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just loved your observation, Vedika! Probably, if the author were to write it as a poem, they might not have included proper names (like Mr Wood, or Avonlea).

    I have observed that those writers who write poetry as well, are more descriptive, and their descriptive passages in prose are longer. For instance, Thomas Hardy (you tell your sister, and she will cringe, I know!): once you learn to appreciate his poetry, you will enjoy the prose too. His prose language is quite poetic!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you.

    I would love to try reading a Thomas Hardy poem.
    Could you suggest a good one?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you.

    I would love to try reading a Thomas Hardy poem.
    Could you suggest a good one?

    ReplyDelete

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