How does (or should) form direct the flow of energy into a poem, or out of it?
I must say that I never think of form as directing. I don’t think of the form itself as making any demands. In this I suppose I’m very close to being a free-verse poet. I think of the form as something that you choose because what you want to say is going to be able to take advantage of it. One example that I have always given my students is the Petrarchan sonnet. Robert Frost used to say if you have something you’d like to say for about eight lines and then want to take it back for six lines, you’re on the verge of writing a sonnet. And he meant the Petrarchan, I guess, in that case. Every form I think has a certain logic, has certain expressive capabilities. Most of the time the ideas that come to us have no business at all being thrust into the sonnet form. If we did start behaving that way, it would be true that the form would be directing us, would be making certain demands. But if one chooses form rightly, one is not submitting to the demands of the form but making use of it at e
