Tag Archives: Bill Herbert

In the Poem, Music Makes Meaning

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The Herbertian Way

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How is meaning of a poem heightened by its music? In Bill Herbert’s manual, Writing Poetry, there’s an interview with Sean O’Brien about the composition of O’Brien’s poem, ‘Cousin Coat‘.  We learn from this that early drafts were written not in the rhymed iambic pentameters readers know, but in free verse. Why the change? Continue reading