Hi Lew,
Interesting post, especially what you said about free verse. And I thought free verse was poetry that didn't rhyme or have regular meter, but still looks like poetry - with the strategic line breaks, enjambments, non standard punctuation, etc. And I tought prose poems were written just like a regular paragraph but making use of poetic elements like strong imagery and metaphor and all that jazz. Most of the poems I write are what I call free verse, but I've never thought of them as prose poems. So is this a matter of debate among real poets? And by real I mean published. haha
I never heard of sapphics and I had to look up prolepsis. I feel like I'm getting a tuition-free graduate course here!
As for your poem, I think it is very beautiful. What stands out to me are the sounds of the words themselves, like falling autumns and gourded gardens - I love that! But I think my ear is not so sensitive to metrics except the most obvious like iambic pentameter or tetrameter. If you had not pointed out the meter, I don't think I would have noticed it and would have just thought it was free verse. Maybe not, but is metrics something you grew into? I kind of get the feeling (around the eratosphere anyway) that "good" poets sort of graduate to meterics, and that free verse is easier or less developed or something, but I would hate to say that out loud and insult all the free verse people.
annie
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