In a recent thread about sonnets on Twitter, the poet and critic Dana Levin remarked that traditional forms “have resurged.” She added, “Why is that? Is it the way it can hold all our screaming?” When we feel helpless, do metrical forms offer the illusion of control? Or are we drawn to tradition itself, because it’s familiar, and therefore comforting?
Friday, November 23, 2018
Sonnets and more …
… That Formal Feeling. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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I want to say it's as simple as the fact that after a century of free verse, a stronger adherence to form feels new again--but it's more than that. Poetry is form. Even free-verse poets who think they're defying form are working in the negative space created by the outlines of form. They're also implicitly commenting on form whether they want to be or not. Good free-verse poets know this; bad ones get petulant when they hear it.
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