Kit Fryatt: "Good anglophone metrical poems, 1960- present?"
Amongst current work, I like W.N.Herbert, Glyn Maxwell, John Tranter's metrical/rhymed poems, and Charles Bernstein's experiments. Anyone who claims that formal verse cannot be inventive, innovative and improvizational should at least check out Herbert's poem "Spooner Vale" in his latest book. (Pardon the cliche, I want to add "if Shakespeare is not enough...") I also like the (still less known) mertical work of Ben Mazer, Henry Gould, Jeet Thayil and John Hennessy, some of which Katia and I have published in Fulcrum. Have no use for the New Fomalists though.
Kit Fryatt: "And no, I've never read a modern villanelle that's struck me as a real poem, let alone any good."
Indeed, almost never is there a vilanelle worth reading; ditto for sestinas. But John Kinsella has a couple of very unusual villanelles worth checking out.
Philip
P.S. I would like to respond to Mark soon re. Auden -- am trying to make time.
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