May I prod this back to recent poetry that is both about Big Stuff and assertively Formal? Much as I relish the Jane Hirshfield quoted above, it has no regular rhyme or rhythmic structure. What is there is ideas well stated, but it is close to formal verse in some ways. Quite by accident, I encountered her and it at a small poetry reading, and dared to suggest to her a minor change in the last sentence. Oh, no, she naturally said, firmly. Well, I went away serendipitously impressed and 99.6 % satisfied.
What would be the effect of framing much the same poem in a more patterned and thus more memorable form? Would it rise (or for those who are jealous of Pope, descend) to the level of Alexander Pope?
How much of our esthetic is infected by the modern hatred in the arts of Charm?
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