I want to start any discussion of “formalism” with the axiom
that I do not believe in “free verse” as such. “Verse Libre”
is a term initially conceived as reactionary. That is to say, this
verse would have nothing from which to liberate itself were it not
for the overwhelmingly long tradition of metrical poetry. Williams,
for one, said that he did not write “free verse” but that his
lines were composed to the music and measure of American speech. In
his view, Whitman’s “free verse” was a failed experiment; a
loosely structured mess of unmetered lines that did nothing to
address what WCW saw as the fundamental problem of re-structuring
American poetry. That said, I don’t necessarily believe that
Whitman’s poetry was un-metered, but that it was composed to the
measure and music of an antebellum southern orator. For me, the
notion that a writer who has discarded received forms is not a formal
writer is patently absurd. If a writer of free verse is unaware of
how his decision of…