Commissioned as the 2021 StAnza Lecture. Jacqueline’s essay explores the idea that fixed/given/prescribed/traditional/closed form is available to all poets and is a way of respecting what has come before but can also be subversive, and yes, revolutionary.

She discusses works by pioneering women, such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Edna St Vincent Millay, and how contemporary writers, such as Natalie Diaz and Terrance Hayes, use form to question and critique modern life while maintaining a dialogue with poets of the past.