the rhythms of prose or free verse can never be. Enjambmentrn—the spilling-over of one line into the next—is also an expressivernviolation of the norm, because the tidy pentameterrnnorm wants us to pause at the end of every five-foot measure;rnwhen we don’t, when we brush aside that pause and plunge intornthe next line, we do it in support of the poem’s meaning, emphasizingrnperhaps some impetuous emotion or some sustainedrnand headlong action. If one were describing in verse a 90-yardrnbroken-field run for a touchdown, a good bit of enjambmentrnwould be called for.rnRhyme, together with the other sound-effects of a poem, canrncast a musical spell, and that music is best when most attunedrnto the larger purposes of the poem. There are many other ways,rnas well, in which rhyme can be functional: it can serve to emphasizernimportant words; it can make important linkages betweenrnkey words; it can demarcate the stages of an argument; itrncan help a witty statement to close with a bang; by the densernrepetition of a few sounds, it can orchestrate obsession or abidingrngrief, as in Robert Frost’s poem “Bereft.” Some of thernthings rhyme can do for a poem are almost too subtle to talkrnabout. For instance, when two lines rhyme, and one of thernrhyme-words has more force than the other, the disparity canrntell us in what tone or tones those lines should be read. I put inrnLIBERAL ARTSrnGRADE INFLATIONrnAs the Associated Press reported in June, a former teacher atrnLake Zurich High School in Illinois has been charged with officialrnmisconduct and intimidation. Prosecutors say that DouglasrnPetrovitch, 28, attempted to trade A grades with his studentsrnfor merchandise at the department stores where theyrnworked. In one case Petrovitch was arrested while trying tornleave a Target department store with $ 1,000 worth of merchandisernwhich he had purchased for $111. Another studentrn”traded a $50 gift certificate to a restaurant owned by his fatherrnfor an A, and a fourth bought lunch for the teacher severalrntimes in exchange for his grade.” Upon learning he was beingrninvestigated, Petrovitch called the students and threatenedrnto break their kneecaps with a baseball bat if they talked to thernpolice.rnevidence the first four lines of a Gerard Manley Hopkins sonnet,rna sonnet that’s full of spiritual anguish:rnNo worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,rnMore pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.rnGomforter, where, where is your comforting?rnMary, mother of us, where is your relief?rn”Wring” is a strong rhyme-word, and “comforting,” in the nextrnline, rhymes very weakly with it. If I am not mistaken, we arernthereby instructed to read that whole line about the absence ofrnthe Holy Spirit—”Gomforter, where, where is your comforting?”rn—in a weak, spiritless, and broken way.rnLet me say a little about those traditional verse forms whichrnwere bequeathed to us by the masters—^by those whom Yeatsrnaddresses as “sages standing in God’s holy fire.” When a formalrnpoet feels a poem coming on, he reaches into the toolboxrnof traditional means and picks out a meter which seems likelyrnto suit his hazily emerging thought; he tentatively decidesrnwhether the services of rhyme will be needed; he tries to foreseernwhether the argument of his poem will want to be paragraphedrninto stanzas; and then he gets going—knowing, of course, thatrnas his poem finds its voice he may change his mind about whatrndevices will further it. Many formal poems, nowadays, are constructedrnin that ad hoc fashion, and they sometimes arrive atrnrhyme-schemes and stanza patterns which are quite withoutrnprecedent or name. On the other hand, the poet has a splendidrnresource in all those tested verse-forms which have beenrnhanded down to us; the couplet, the canzone, the Spenserianrnstanza, the rondeau, the sonnet, and so on. These variousrnstructures have something of that benign, enabling characterrnwhich I ascribed to good manners, but with the difference thatrnthey are all optional, and should only be used when they are peculiarlyrnappropriate to some incipient utterance. Robert Frostrnonce said something like this: that if you feel like saying somethingrnfor about eight lines, and then qualifying or unsaying itrnfor six lines or so, you are probably about to write a Petrarchanrnsonnet. That is the way it should happen: the beginning poem,rnas it materializes, should choose the form whose logic will providernit with precision, economy, and power.rnEvery form has its particular logic and capabilities; if an epigramrnis on the tip of one’s tongue, it should probably find utterancernin a smartly rhyming couplet or quatrain, and it wouldrnbe pointless folly to try to inflate it into a sonnet. There are certainrnreiterative forms, like the villanelle and sestina, which arerndesigned to accommodate the mind’s hashing and rehashing ofrna subject; if sestinas and villanelles ruminate to some purpose,rnthey can be splendid; but if they are not driven by a strong needrnto turn some subject over and over, if they amount to no morernthan the fulfilling of a tricky pattern, then they are vacuous andrninterminable.rnLest I be interminable, let me call a halt to all this technicalrntalk. I hope to have made it clear that I have no interest in formrnfor form’s sake. The meter-using poets of my generation wouldrnsurely say the same, as would the excellent younger formalistsrnwho are now occupying the field, such as Timothy Steele, MaryrnJo Salter, Eimily Grosholz, Dana Gioia, R.S. Gwynn, and manyrnanother. All these would join me, I believe, in agreeing withrnRalph Waldo Emerson, who said that “it is not meters, but arnmeter-making argument that makes a poem.”rnAs for this sort of prize-giving occasion, I think it is a truly benignrnform, and once again I express my thanks,