The Mystery | Style

The Mystery Style

Free Verse

Poets who write in contemporary free verse have fairly free rein in the way they choose to put words on paper. Without restrictions on line length, meter, rhyme, or rhythm, this style of poetry lends itself to more individual manipulation than any other style. Glück is considered one of the best at using casual, easily read, straightforward language in her poetry—a simple style, though not an unsophisticated one. In a review of Vita Nova for the Chicago Review, critic Steven Monte says that:

Glück's verse entices the reader with stylistic effects
familiar to anyone who has leafed through one of her
books: pointed rhetorical questions ... short sentences
whose punch resides in the line breaks . . . rhetorical
afterthoughts warding off melodrama .. . and an evenkeeled,
expository tone punctured by defensiveness and accusation.

Monte's points are demonstrated in "The Mystery" in the rhetorical questions....
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