Well, Michael Snider has written, to my mind, the most interesting and
worthwhile post I have seen in my few months on Poetryetc. I might quarrel
with some of it, but the below, check it out:
Says Michael:
>>But poets learn their craft from other poets. In another thread, Alison
(sorry, I don't know her last name -- I haven't been a good lurker)
says she writes free verse because it's harder than metrical verse. I
think she's right -- it IS harder, and I think it's even harder when a
young poet doesn't have some facility (not just familiarity) with
metrical verse. I think the CW industry does a real disservice to young
writers by not insisting on hundreds of set pieces of the sort once
routinely demanded of those lucky enough to get an education at all in
the bad old days (and they were bad old days). Not necessarily
translations of Horace -- but how about translations of Lorca's late
sonnets that respect their formal intentions? Or of Akhmatova? Of
course, many CW directors couldn't do that themselves.
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