For my own part, I have invented a form which I think better than either. I believe that this form is as superior to the sonnet as the sonnet is to the limerick. I call this form the duocapet because it is, in a sense, double-headed, having two rhyming words in every line—one at each end. I have discarded rhythm but retained rhyme. I had good reasons for adopting this course. I regard meter as a useless encumbrance. It is meter, not rhyme, which hampers the true poet. The poet should be free—free as the air—free as the birds. It is a crime against art to bind him with silly meaningless meters and rhythms which distract his attention from his theme and serve only to furnish critics with an excuse for picking flaws. I hope that the happy day will soon arrive when laymen will leave to the poets the settling of all questions of form, but in the present state of public ignorance and prejudice I think it advisable to concede them something in order that they may realize that we are writing poetry. Later, when the public is sufficiently educated to recognize poetry without any of its ancient ear-marks, I may discard rhyme also.
For the present I think the duocapet is the most logical and artistic of existing forms. Writing in the duocapet, the poet has only one rule to observe—that the first word of every line shall rhyme with the last. I have, in fact, reduced the couplet to a single line, making the two rhyming words come one at each end of that line, where they logically belong, one opening and one closing the line, instead of placing them one under the other in the manner of Pope. Standing in this position they may be likened to two sentries that guard the thought of the poet. It is as if the rhyme at the first end of the line called out, “Who goes there?” and the other responds, “A friend!” In the duocapet the poet may make his lines short or long as best pleases him without regard for the length of lines that go before or that follow.
This poetry is produced as all true poetry should be produced, a line at a time. No whole can be perfect which is defective in any part. In the duocapet every line is a perfect poem, complete in itself, every line contains a distinct thought, and though the sentence may sometimes extend from one line to another, this is never necessary and rests with the discretion of the poet. Should he choose, he might write a whole poem consisting of nothing but complete sentences, a sentence a line, with a period at the end of each. The poem can be made ten lines in length or ten thousand, and asterisks and italics can be introduced at will. With the exception of the rhyme, the poet is as free in this form as in any form of vers libre. I append an example of duocapet which should give you a good idea of the possibilities of this form:
Midnight
Gone is the day and I look out upon
Night bathed in Luna’s sad illusive light ...
Dark are the shadows out in Central Park;
Hushed are the streets through which the traffic rushed ...
See! Underneath that weeping-willow tree
Prone lies a figure on a bench alone!