Called "the ultimate poet's poet" by Gioia, Justice was revered for spare, elegant writing that displayed an encyclopedic embrace and masterly reinvention of traditional forms, including the sonnet, villanelle and sestina. He also wrote syllabics, couplets, free verse, epigrams, ballads and odes.
His inspirations were similarly diverse, from Baudelaire and Wallace Stevens to blues lyrics and nursery rhymes. This eclecticism produced powerful effects, as in "Counting the Mad," an early poem about madness and despair that owes much to the architecture of a children's ditty, "This Little Piggy":
This one was put in a jacket,
This one was sent home,
This one was given bread and meat
But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long.
"He took this cute, little baby's rhyme and filled it with the most horrifying material," said poet and longtime friend Robert Mezey. "If he had written nothing else but 'Counting the Mad' he would be immortal."
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