Gaer- there is some excellent stuff in your comments; it will take a bit to digest. Again, I am but the amateur with only a couple of years of experience... I have been reading F W Bateson's Intorduction to English Poetry; John Ciardi's How Does A Poem Mean? is now high on the To Read list- I hope it is not too much mulah. Sometimes these things get out of control: Schenker's books (REPRINTS even!!!) ran me hundreds; George Oldroid's fugue book was fifty (about 2 bucks a page)... etc. A good book is a good bok after all.

The problem with the old english poets for me is pronunciation. Unless one is learned in the idioms, one is nearly lost. Chaucer is another high on the list of To Be Read, along with Spenser; I am held back by my own knowledge level of the language.

I love enjambment- you confirm my understanding of its use- to carry the movement forward past the carriage return as it were. I suppose there is lacking in my understanding of what a caesura is: necessarily a pause after a period, certainly. Commas too; however, what about when there is no punctuation mark. How to tell if a caesure is in one of these lines? Always after direct objects; adjectives; some particular, regular part of a sentence etc?

I am impelled to look into this further- my work will take another turn (for the better, for the different) as I do. Live, learn, and change.

Thanks! I plan on learning much from you as you see worthy to offer!

Be well,
Brandon Esten
A.K.A ERJ Cat
;)