Dana Gioia’s Pity the Beautiful: Poems

It’s rather startling to read contemporary poetry that rhymes. And Pity the Beautiful: Poems by Dana Gioia is startling in exactly that way, and more.

There’s a name for this, of course; we have to give everything a name: The “New Formalism.” It reaches back to a time when most poetry did indeed rhyme, and was metrical as well. It was also a time (roughly pre-World War II, perhaps a little earlier) when poetry has a much broader appeal than it does today. Newspapers, for example often published poetry on a daily basis. The poets associated with the New Formalism include Mark Jarman, Howard Nemerov, Donald Justice, Mary Oliver – and Dana Gioia.

To continue reading, please see my review today at Tweetspeak Poetry.