Rayuela

[Knot]

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Hi Tim,

(as another non-expert) I suppose I use form where I can, where it suits the piece (and because that is what the poem wants.)  Often it (or rather, structure, what Mark is calling form-ality) is something that develops through the process of editing/rewriting. An emergent property, if you will To paraphrase Michelangelo "the sculpture poem is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

For me a lot of verse, free verse included, seems far to often to be used as a synonym for first draft (and an excuse for avoiding a second, third, or nth draft). But that's a purely personal view.  (Also, I'd second all that Mark has said, particularly of the free verse subject)

On an entirely unrelated note

added to my reliquary of pens found

Can you tell me why this line ends on found and why the word is then repeated a couple of lines later? To me it reads like carelessness (hiding behind the idea of free verse) and so undermines my confidence in the voice I'm listening to, but I could be wrong

In the vain hope that that helps,

Knot

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