Friday, February 12, 2010

The Art of Poetry


From The Paris Review archives, there is a 1974 interview with poet W.H. Auden.

From the piece...

INTERVIEWER
You have always been a formalist. Today’s poets seem to prefer free verse. Do you think that’s an aversion to discipline?

AUDEN
Unfortunately that’s too often the case. But I can’t understand—strictly from a hedonistic point of view—how one can enjoy writing with no form at all. If one plays a game, one needs rules, otherwise there is no fun. The wildest poem has to have a firm basis in common sense, and this, I think, is the advantage of formal verse.

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