On Sunday, July 8, 2001, at 01:36 PM, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> I shudder
> at the use of the term 'formalist' as if it could only be asserted in
> the
> context of already constructed 'forms,' and as if those who seek new
> forms
> aren't just as formalist, really. But I also tend to agree with Eliot
> Weinberger's claims a few years ago (I think the article is in one of
> the
> early issues of Jacket) that an awful lot of the writing by the 'New
> Formalists' is just vapid & weak.
Douglas, It is an unfortunate term -- like nearly all movement names, it
has too much of the slogan about it, and seems to imply that "form" can
only mean the use of traditional metrical theory, which is what they
(and I) are really interested in. Of course "free" verse also uses and
discovers a variety of forms, but "New Metrists" just doesn't have much
of a ring to it.
And isn't a lot of the writing by any group of poets vapid and weak?
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