What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
The tension between using a traditionally accepted form or not. The trend or habit in contemporary poetry seems to be to ignore the rules and, rather, feel your way through the poem by expressing it the way it intends to be expressed. “To go with the flow.” That’s appealing for a lot of reasons, of course, but I’m also drawn to the classical types, to sestinas and pantoums, to villanelles and sonnets. But some of these come with baggage, today, a level of formality that tends to turn off publishers and readers alike. (Okay, maybe not villanelles; I can’t say Dylan Thomas has gone out of style!)
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