SOURCE: Karr, Mary. “Against Decoration.” In Viper Rum, pp. 49-72. New York, N.Y.: New Directions, 1998.

In the following essay, which was originally published in Parnassus magazine in 1991, Karr expounds her opinions on modern poetic techniques and presents a critique of contemporary neo-formalist poetry, arguing that it lacks both emotion and clarity.

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Decoration abounds in contemporary poetry, much of it marching beneath the banner of neo-formalism. Actually a mix of strict form and free verse, the new formalist poems juggle rhyme, meter, and various syllabic and stanzaic strategies. In the last ten years, the movement has generated a rush of anthologies, such as Robert Richman's The Direction of Poetry: Rhymed and Metered Verse Written in the English Language since 1975. Richman, the poetry editor of the neo-conservative New Criterion, selects not only distinguished writers such as the late James Merrill, John Hollander, and Anthony Hecht (all of whom, by...