Poetics and Ruminations: Proving the Rule

April 04, 2015

When I said that "an exception to a rule cannot 'prove' it (at least not in the modern sense), it can only DISprove it, a former colleague of mine at SUNY Oswego and a very good friend scoffed at me and said that it certainly could. I replied that an exception can only show that the "rule" is not a rule. He refused to be logical, although he was a Professor of English. But the use of the word "proves" in the old slogan does not mean that the rule has been proven in the modern sense, but in the archaic sense of "tests":

The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship, by Lewis Turco, Hanover: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com), 1999. ISBN 0874519543, cloth; ISBN 0-874519-55-1, paper. A companion volume to The Book of Dialogue and The Book of Forms. A Choice “Outstanding academic title” for 2000.

Webworks

Wesli Court Self-Interview
Wesli Court is interviewed by Lewis Turco about his new collection titled The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems.
Traveler's Moon
Photograph by Adel Gorgy
Three Poems
“Domestic Duties Scorecard,” “Leftover Shakespearean Gnomes,” "Tsunami Strait."
Thinking Out Loud
A poem in Per Contra, Issue 35, Spring 2015,
The Virginia Quarterly Review
"The Mutable Past," a memoir collected in FANTASEERS, A BOOK OF MEMORIES by Lewis Turco of growing up in the 1950s in Meriden, Connecticut, (Scotsdale AZ: Star Cloud Press, 2005).
The Tower Journal
Two short stories, "The Demon in the Tree" and "The Substitute Wife," in the spring 2009 issue of Tower Journal.
The Tower Journal
A story, "The Car," and two poems, "Fathers" and "Year by Year"
The Tower Journal
Memoir, “Pookah, The Greatest Cat in the History of the World,” Spring-Summer 2010.
The Michigan Quarterly Review
This is the first terzanelle ever published, in "The Michigan Quarterly Review" in 1965. It has been gathered in THE COLLECTED LYRICS OF LEWIS TURCO/WESLI COURT, 1953-2004 (www.StarCloudPress.com).
The Gawain Poet
An essay on the putative medieval author of "Gawain and the Green Knight" in the summer 2010 issue of Per Contra.
The Flea
Four poems.
The Aroostook Review
An interview, some poems, and an Xmas card with the printmaker George O'Connell.
The Tower Journal, Winter 2009-2010
Song of the Mower: The Memoir of a Navy Buddy, a memoir about, and a poem by, Francis T. Rath.
The Poems of Lewis Turco
In the Santa Cruz Good Times Poetry Corner
Sestinamania
Two new sestina anthologies
Poetry Porch
Three poems by Wesli Court in Poetry Porch, Spring 2009, "Basso Profundo, A Carol," "A Paternal Curse," and "The Shade."
Poetry from East to West
Two poems, "Columbian Ode" and "Sestina" by Wesli Court
Ploughshares
"The Man in the Booth" (story); "Vigilance," "Joseph Carr," "Brontophobia" (poems).
Per Contra, Spring 2009
Two poems by Wesli Court, one for Yeats' Birthday and the other for Joyce's Bloomsday.
Per Contra, Fall 2008
A short story, "Moving Day."

Lynx

Wicked
A review/interview by Deirdre Fleming of "Satan's Scourge" by Lewis Turco on 15 March 2009 in the Portland, Maine, Sunday Telegram.
The Tower Journal, Fall, 2013
Lewis Turco is the featured poet this issue.
The Tower Journal
"Elegy for John David Knell"
The Lewis Turco Collection
The Cleveland State University Poetry Center
The Black Death
Bryan Bridges' interesting article on the villanelle and the terzanelle with "The Black Death" by Wesli Court as an example of the latter.
Star Cloud Press - Welcome to our homepage
Books by Lewis Turco
Song for a Granddaughter
Jessima Ranney
Setting the Table, by Wordsworth and Turco
An argument with William Wordsworth
Seniority: Six Shakespearian Tailgaters
This is a part of a series called "Gnomes" others of which have appeared in TRINACRIA and on the blog POETICS AND RUMINATIONS.
Seed Moon, image by Lalit Jain
Scott Turco's Blog
Nephew Scott and family
Robert Mezey: The Curve of His Return
In The Hollins Critic, xlviii:2, April 2011, pp. 1-14.
Reinventing the Wheel, Modern Poems in Classical Meters
An essay with illustrations of poems written in classical meters together with a "Table of Meters" and "The Rules of Scansion" in the Summer 2009 issue of Trellis Magazine
Poetry from East to West
Contributors' Bookshelves
Poetry and Popular Culture
An interview by Mike Chasar with Lew Turco on the subject of science-fiction and genre poetry, January 13, 2010.
Per Contra
An interview with Lewis Turco by Miriam N. Kotzin plus a poem by Turco and one by Wesli Court
Papers of Lewis Turco - Special Collections - The University of Iowa Libraries
Lewis Turco archive at the University of Iowa
Omen
Poem
New York Quarterly
Maine Writers: T through Z
Waterboro Library listing of Maine authors