The Uneven Bars

This discussion begins with someone commenting on the fourth stanza of “Eros Turannos” by Edwin Arlington Robinson; she comments on the “unlike things” in the stanza and in the poem—a sense of freedom within the exigencies of the stanza form. That athletic thinking is compared to gymnastic feats on the uneven bars. Another person talks about the formal presence and absence of the word “him” in the poem, turning on that same fourth stanza. That movement of “him” is considered as a formal effect. Unnoticed form is compared to the rectangular grid of Manhattan streets, with rectangular windows and buildings.