Of course free verse is a form of verse. In many ways that was the
problem because those who went on and on writing what they considered
to be free verse were actually getting more and more narrow in their
content - the exact opposite of what they thought they were doing.
They didn't know that free verse was a form therefore the formal
strictures of what they were up to were constricting their thoughts
without them realising what was going on.
As for leftist trad formalist writers there are some very good
examples here in the UK - we have Harrison of course but far more to
my liking is Andy Croft, based in Middlesbrough. He runs the
Smokestack publishing series of socialist verse etc. His own work is
trad formal to the point of ridiculousness but I love his stuff.
Tim A.
On 14 Apr 2010, at 16:58, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> have no problem in recognizing 'that free verse too often becomes
> an excuse for writing poor verse'; but the same applies to a lot of
> what its practitioners call 'formalist' verse (as if 'free verse'
> were not a form, nor other forms of invention).
>
> It is interesting that quite a few politically 'leftist' writers do
> (or did) use trad forms, Alison, as you pointed out...
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