[Charles Albert]

I generally have a lower opinion of free verse, but I 've become quite enamored with Billy Collins. I wish I could write with his humor, even if it doesn't scan!

[Alan Wickes]

From a UK perspective - I subscribe to Envoi which always has an interesting range of fv - Joan Hewitt, Estill Pollock and Roger Elkin all contributing interesting poems in the 150th 'Gala' Issue published in June.

I know it's from 2002 - but we are a cultural backwater here - I've enjoyed grappling with Jorie Graham's 'Never'. Technically it's the antithesis of how I write - and it's good for the creative juices to read things which are entirely different to your own preferences.

I'd not come across Elizabeth Alexander previously - her Bloodaxe Anthology from 2006 came as a bit of a revelation to this white middleclass Englishman. Fugue has one of the most memorable opening sentences I've come across in a while:

Virginia Woolf, incested
through her childhood, wrote
that she imagined herself
growing up inside a grape.

I don't see that it's sensible to limit yourself to reading one sort of poetry - I enjoy reading free verse; any attempts I've made to write it have been truly inept.

Alan

[Chris Hanson]

If it's print, I'm more likely to read an anthology with a good mix of free and metered verse.
When I have the time, I occasionally go to one of the FV workshops (including here) just to see what's being written at the minute.

[Wintaka]

The best poem of our time is free verse. How could I not read the stuff? That said, I'm more selective about free verse, preferring that the poets/poems be "metrically informed", to borrow Quincy's expression. If a book is by someone I don't know I'll flip through and reject it if there are no metrical poems included. Life's too short to waste on poets who probably can't handle meter. It may be a double standard but I just find that middling verse is tolerable while mediocre free verse isn't.


Best regards,

Colin

[Golias]

Dick Barnes; A Word Like Fire contains some of the most glorious free verse it has ever been my pleasure to read, and I recommend it to any and everyone who loves good poetry. However, the fv of Dick Barnes, who was also master of the old craft, is the sole exception to my general habit.

My remaining sum of hours for reading poetry is too small and too precious to waste on material that doesn't scan, doesn't rhyme, and not a line of which I will remember twenty minutes after the book is closed.

G/W

[Robert J. Clawson]

Originally posted by Wintaka:

It may be a double standard but I just find that middling verse is tolerable while mediocre free verse isn't

I can't tolerate either. It's either poetry or it isn't.

Frost called free verse tennis without a net. I think free and formal are closer than we think. Free is tennis singles; formal, doubles. In tennis doubles, the strategy and tactics are well set; in singles, the player can freelance. Each, played well, is a beautiful game.

I also like Quincy's "metrically informed." I doubt that one can be a free-verse poet without having practiced metrical verse. For both singles and doubles tennis, one has to learn the strokes and how to move within the box.

I mentioned the kinship between free verse and jazz in a previous post. No truly good jazz player hasn't learned the fundamentals of music nor doesn't practice scales.

Bob

[Wintaka]

I said:

It may be a double standard but I just find that middling verse is tolerable while mediocre free verse isn't.

Robert J. Clawson said:

It's either poetry or it isn't.

My point exactly. Verse is poetry but anything less than the very best free verse is going to be dismissed (by some, at least) as "prose with linebreaks". IMHO, "free and formal are closer than we think" is true only for the very best of free verse.

Sturgeon's Law puts things in perspective. 90% of poetry, published or not, is crud. 9% is mediocre. Of the other 1%, .9% is good and .1% is great. YMMV.

\_/

[Janice D. Soderling]

Welcome to Non-Met, Ladies and Gentlemen.

The red carpet is rolled out.

Dee and Janice

(posted by Janice who thanks Quincy for the free advertising)

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Here are some poets I enjoy reading who write, usually or often, in FV: Stephen Dobyns, Samuel Menashe, Patricia Fargnoli, Luisa Igloria, Peter Krok, Maria Terrone, John Ridland, Lee Slonimsky, Laure-Ann Bosselaar...the list goes on and on. In every issue of a typical magazine full of FV there's one poem--maybe two--that I keep going back to with pleasure, even if the author's name is unfamliar.

[Jennifer Reeser]

I just finished Jorie Graham's Sea Change.