pete@valid.UUCP (Pete Zakel) (01/22/86)
> From: Lynn Gold <Lynn%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA> > > As he trudged through the mud in the moonlight, the Corvette roared after > him, gleaming like a fire engine. > > Note that unless you count "fire engine" as an adjective followed by a noun, > rather than a compound word, there are no adjectives in the second example. Sorry, but "gleaming like a fire engine" is an adjective phrase modifying "Corvette", and "the" and "a", although commonly refered to as "articles" (sp?) are in fact adjectives also. Otherwise you make a very good point. -Pete Zakel (..!{hplabs,amd,pyramid,ihnp4}!pesnta!valid!pete)
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (03/01/86)
From time to time, there are postings in this group about getting published or about being an SF writer in general. I thought the following poem about writing might be of interest to some of the would-be (or even won't-be :-) writers in this group. It's by W. S. Merwin, and is from his collection "Opening The Hand," published by Atheneum in 1983. John Berryman was a post-WWII poet who committed suicide in the late '60s (as I recall). Those of you who are interested in contemporary poetry and/or the language would do well to look into Merwin's work. Since most copyright arrangements allow parts of a poem to be published in the context of a review, I'm reproducing several stanzas only and providing the following review for net.legalists: Merwin is one of our greatest poets ... read him! :-) ==================================================================== BERRYMAN I will tell you what he told me in the years just after the war as we then called the second world war don't lose your arrogance yet he said you can do that when you're older lose it too soon and you may merely replace it with vanity ... as for publishing he advised me to paper my wall with rejection slips his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled with the vehemence of his view about poetry he said the great presence that permitted everything and transmuted it in poetry was passion passion was genius and he praised movement and invention I had hardly begun to read I asked how can you ever be sure that what you write is really any good at all and he said you can't you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing whether anything you wrote was any good if you have to be sure don't write ============================================================= -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly