Pantoum, Villanelle, Sestina

A skilled and restless metricist, [Donald] Justice likes to experiment with traditional forms, which he enlivens and roughens with variations. („I like to leave a rough spot or two in handling any of the forms,“ he says, „a mark of authenticity.“) He has written one of the best modern pantoums („Pantoum of the Great Depression“) and two of the finest villanelles in English („In Memory of the Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughan“ and „Villanelle at Sundown“). His sestinas are models of ingenuity („A Dream Sestina,“ „Sestina on Six Words by Weldon Kees,“ „Here in Katmandu“). In a moving elegy for his mother, „Psalm and Lament,“ he employs the structural strategies of the psalm — statement and reiteration — to encompass his sorrow. / Edward Hirsch, Poet´s Choice, The Washington Post 7.9.03

Donald Justice, „New and Selected Poems.“ Alfred A. Knopf, 1995