On Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 3:44:42 PM UTC-4, NancyGene wrote:
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> In "Strange Bedfellows (the book)," https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/c/OJNpPgmoBEg/m/jDJHfuXBJmMJ, Will Dockery wrote:
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> "Nice section in the book Strange Bedfellows (And "The History of Modern Poetry", Page 311 by David Perkins, which is where Steven Watson seems to have gotten most of his information) about the movement that took off around 1910 (and not before in any major way, although the form can be traced back as far as Beowulf, the writer claims) the "Poets of Revolt" aka "Free Versers"."
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> "Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell seem to me to be the most famous poets of this group. In 1912, Pound wrote "I believe in /Absolute Rhythm/, that is [...] poetry that corresponds exactly to the emotion being expressed..."
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> "The Poets of Revolt term was supposedly generic for the new poets, the writers of the 1910s also known as "free-versers" and vers librists, because they championed the rise of free verse, which replaced fixed stanzas, meter and rhyme with Absolute Rhythm, as Erza Pound called it."
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> "In addition, there were other distinctive factions during 1910-1917 and beyond..."
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> "The Tramp Poets (!) aka Hobohemians, led by Vachel Lindsay, Harry Kemp and others, The Patagonians, Imagists and the Otherists all fit under the generic (and sometimes sneering) label of Poets of Revolt, the Free-Versers."
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> Poets loosely associated with these groups included:
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> Richard Aldington
> Amy Lowell
> Vachel Lindsay
> Harry Kemp
> Donald Evans
> Allen Norton
> Louise Norton
> H.D.
> Mira Loy
> William Carlos Williams
> Alfred Kreymborg
> Ezra Pound
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> In the Saturday Evening Post of April 7th 1917 Sinclair Lewis wrote:
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> "It is called /free verse/ because it doesn't pay."
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> Dockery's source is p. 142 of “Strange Bedfellows” by Steven Watson. Mr. Watson wrote:

Which I clearly attributed.

> "Poets of revolt A generic term for the new poets of the 1910s, also known as” free-versers” and “vers librists.” Their common tie was free verse, which replaced fixed stanzas, rhyme, and pre-determined metrical patterns with absolute rhythm. In 1912 Pound wrote, “I believe in an ‘absolute rhythm,’ that is, in poetry which corresponds exactly to the emotion to be expressed.” (In David Perkins, “A History of Modern Poetry,” p. 311.) Free verse had historical precedents dating back to “Beowulf” but not until the 1910s did the majority of important poets work in that mode..
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> The term “free verse” was associated with such disparate groups as the “tramp poets” or “hobohemians” (Vachel Lindsay, Harry Kemp), the “Patagonians” (Donald Evans, Allen and Louise Norton), the “Imagistes/Imagists (H.D., Richard Aldington, Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound), and the “Otherists” (Mina Loy, William Carlos Williams, Alfred Kreymborg). Sinclair Lewis quipped that free verse was “so called because it doesn’t pay.” (“Hobohemia,” “Saturday Evening Post,” April 7, 1917.)
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(Moved from the troll thread.)