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(In the environs of Boston and Amherst the British accent was still studiously cultivated.) If we heard Emily Dickinson speak today, she would probably sound more British than American. I also don’t feel a uniquely modern American diction in her poetry (as opposed to British).
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Some readers might argue for Emily Dickinson, but Dickinson never ventured beyond the common meter of the hymn and ballad. ~ EA Robinsonīefore Frost brought a vernacular gait to Iambic Pentameter, Robinson was the first poet to bring a modern American diction to meter and form. About the best I can say is that the best free verse that I have seen contains subject matter for good poems. I have only one objection to free verse and that is that it seems to me to be a makeshift.