i just saw tim blake nelson’s leaves of grass. it has its own charm in its obvious exposition and symbolism, and so it’s not as eye-rolling as it might be when the earthy rural poetess explains walt whitman to the straight-laced urban(e) philosophy prof.  and, in fact, her defense of free form verse, while basic, actually excited me: that each poem has ‘its own interior rhythm’.  i don’t think this is just a glib argument for breaking the rules, because it goes both ways – maybe the best villanelles would have stumped their writers in other forms, but it was as villanelles that they really sang.  good content is that which finds its form.