Free verse poets have certainly been known to say some asinine things about rhyme and meter. But do they waste their time writing clumsy, self-important vers libre manifestos about how much formal verse sucks?
One thing Cook demonstrates with this characteristically witless, soulless poem is that Whitworth and Whitman are both better poets than she is. Her line "Feel sorry for poor poets blaring pompously, full blast" is an inadvertently apt auto-critique zinger.
Every well-written formal poem is a compelling argument for the virtues of the literary tradition it embodies. Bumf like Cook's sells us short by telling the world that formalist poets are insecure cultists with nothing to say beyond empty boasts about being better than the other sects.
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