I was very struck by this passage from an interview with Thom Gunn, quoted by Lisa McCabe on Twitter. It\u2019s the most complete statement I\u2019ve seen of something that I imagine will be dimly felt by everyone who tries to write seriously in a technically challenging way. Asked what the constriction of a pre-determined form pressed him (or one) to do, Gunn answered<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It presses you to explore the subject. That\u2019s the simple answer. It presses you to explore everything: the subject itself, your reactions to it, to explore language. There\u2019s a fascinating thing that happens with the need to find a rhyme, you sometimes have to list all the words that rhyme and create a context that will be relevant to your subject, be a necessary part of your subject, for the rhyme to occur. And you have to dig so deep into your subject, you have to dig deeper than you would ever have dreamt you would have for a technical need.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Of course this pressure is only felt by people who are serious about both the sense and the form of what they\u2019re writing. It can be evaded by anyone who\u2019s happy to pad their writing with words and phrases that carry little meaning but do satisfy the demands of rhyme or meter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Among the infinite possible illustrations of the kind of intellectual and imaginative exploration that Gunn talks about, Baudelaire\u2019s marvellous sonnet \u2018Sed Non Satiata\u2019 immediately comes to mind. I\u2019ve always been haunted by the lines \u2018Quand vers toi mes d\u00e9sirs partent en caravane \/ Tes yeux sont la citerne ou boivent mes ennuis\u2019 (\u2018When my desires set off towards you in a caravan, your eyes are the cistern where my boredom \/ world-weariness \/ troubles drink(s)\u2019. There\u2019s a kind of explosion in my mind with the plural idea of desires made concrete by the image of a whole chain of camels plodding through the desert, their heads swaying, connected but moving separately. The image swarms with suggestions about the nature of the poet\u2019s desire, about the tedium, oppressiveness and desolation of his life, the intensity of his yearning, but also \u2013 with the word \u2018partent\u2019 \u2013 about the hopefulness of the moment of departure. And I think the packed, rich, hopeful, despairing, exhausted but dynamic image is a fine illustration of the inspiring power of what Gunn describes as \u2018the need to create a context that will be relevant to your subject, be a necessary part of your subject, for the rhyme to occur.\u2019 In his fine book Baudelaire and the Poetics of Craft<\/em> Graham Chesters tells us that by choosing to rhyme on \u2018-avane\u2019, rather than just \u2018-vane\u2019 or \u2018-ane\u2019, Baudelaire forced himself to use the only four French words that do that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here\u2019s the whole poem:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sed non satiata<\/strong><\/p>\n Bizarre d\u00e9it\u00e9, brune comme les nuits, Je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re au constance, \u00e0 l’opium, au nuits, Par ces deux grands yeux noirs, soupiraux de ton \u00e2me, H\u00e9las! et je ne puis, M\u00e9g\u00e8re libertine, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was very struck by this passage from an interview with Thom Gunn, quoted by Lisa McCabe on Twitter. It\u2019s the most complete statement I\u2019ve seen of something that I imagine will be dimly felt by everyone who tries to write seriously in a technically challenging way. Asked what the constriction of a pre-determined form […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-baudelaire","category-form"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAu parfum m\u00e9lang\u00e9 de musc et de havane,
\nOeuvre de quelque obi, le Faust de la savane,
\nSorci\u00e8re au flanc d’\u00e9b\u00e8ne, enfant des noirs minuits,<\/p>\n
\nL’\u00e9lixir de ta bouche o\u00f9 l’amour se pavane;
\nQuand vers toi mes d\u00e9sirs partent en caravane,
\nTes yeux sont la citerne o\u00f9 boivent mes ennuis.<\/p>\n
\n\u00d4 d\u00e9mon sans piti\u00e9! verse-moi moins de flamme;
\nJe ne suis pas le Styx pour t’embrasser neuf fois,<\/p>\n
\nPour briser ton courage et te mettre aux abois,
\nDans l’enfer de ton lit devenir Proserpine!<\/p>\n