I think it's important how this debate is framed. Do you really want to set
up a binary between free verse poets and formal metrical poets? It seems
to me that Zukofsky, Williams, Frost, Eliot, & many many other 20th-cent
poets proved that the character of "measure" is something that transcends
or overturns that binary. Studying metrics & traditional forms, or
exploring alternative concepts of measure & design, is only the
beginning of wisdom. Taking this supposed binary & then framing it
as an agon between "free-versers" & "new formalists" for the prize of
popularity or dominance - this seems like a recipe for deafness.
I liked Anastasios' linking of Frost & Olson (& Williams). Frost's
ideas about form as a dramatic speech act, with a teleology - a
"denouement" - is a good example of how the question of form -
musical, dramatic - doesn't make "forms" irrelevant, but gives
them a deeper substance. (I think Frost in his offhand comments
tends to downplay the structural-musical importance of stanza &
strophe in his work: by, again, framing form as a kind of athletics -
tennis with the net - he sort of trivializes his own formal
necessities. He DEPENDS on strophic repetition to accomplish
his form.)
Auden agreed with you, Alison: he thought free verse was harder
to write. But he thought metrics was worth studying for its own
sake. I think the whole thing is very close to what you see in
music. There are those with incredible natural talent for rhythm
& sound. But the language of music can also be learned, profitably.
It works both ways, it's not either/or.
Henry
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