...the forms class I took from Rodney Jones at Southern Illinois was essentially--and quite openly on his part--a course on the use of syntax in free verse. My verse isn't always free verse, but it's always--when it's good, or when I think it's good, or when I TEND to think it's good--informed by a consciousness of stress that I got from studying 16th and 17th century English poetry and from studying 20th century poets who were conscious of those poets and later ones who wrote with an iambic line, or, again, with a consciousness of that line in their rhythm. Some may, and very validly, really, think of that as reaction, or at least a restriction. I guess they ain't wrong, but it's what I do. Or usually do or have done. When it turns out OK...
...the forms class I took from Rodney Jones at Southern Illinois was essentially--and quite openly on his part--a course on the use of syntax in free verse. My verse isn't always free verse, but it's always--when it's good, or when I think it's good, or when I TEND to think it's good--informed by a consciousness of stress that I got from studying 16th and 17th century English poetry and from studying 20th century poets who were conscious of those poets and later ones who wrote with an iambic line, or, again, with a consciousness of that line in their rhythm. Some may, and very validly, really, think of that as reaction, or at least a restriction. I guess they ain't wrong, but it's what I do. Or usually do or have done. When it turns out OK...