First of all to Curtis: Should not a poet and scholar employ his logic and persuasive powers to advance his claims for the aesthetic values to which he has dedicated his life? Second to Roger: Waves and winds are infinitely changeable, as are the patterns of stress in the iambic or accentual line, but they have a grand order to which poetry responds. When a cold front blows through North Dakota, a south wind will follow. When they blow through the British Virgin Islands, cross seas chop up on the Drake Channel. Not unlike the turn in an Italian Sonnet. I know two free verse poems by heart, The Red Wheelbarrow, and At A Station in the Metro. You've no time to hear the metered poetry I have by heart.
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