It was quite evident that this could never be done in the strict pattern
of a metrical form, but the flowing, fluctuating rhythm of vers libre
seemed to open the door to such an experiment. First, however,
I considered the same method as applied to the more pronounced
movements of natural objects. If the reader will turn to the poem,
"A Roxbury Garden", he will find in the first two sections
an attempt to give the circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground,
and the up and down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.

From these experiments, it is but a step to the flowing rhythm of music.
In "The Cremona Violin", I have tried to give this flowing, changing rhythm
to the parts in which the violin is being played. The effect
is farther heightened, because the rest of the poem is written
in the seven line Chaucerian stanza; and, by deserting this ordered pattern
for the undulating line of vers libre, I hoped to produce
something of the suave, continuous tone of a violin. Again,
in the violin parts themselves, the movement constantly changes,
as will be quite plain to any one reading these passages aloud.

In "The Cremona Violin", however, the rhythms are fairly obvious and regular.
I set myself a far harder task in trying to transcribe the various movements
of Stravinsky's "Three Pieces `Grotesques', for String Quartet".
Several musicians, who have seen the poem, think the movement
accurately given.

These experiments lead me to believe that there is here much food for thought
and matter for study, and I hope many poets will follow me
in opening up the still hardly explored possibilities of vers libre.

A good many of the poems in this book are written in "polyphonic prose".