Forms for the Novice

[twelveoone]

Disagree. Thoroughly. Fiercely.
In fact, sweetest, with the deepest and most sincere affection, I will go so far as to say, Screw that.

Form is playing your scales. Working in established forms makes you limber and flexible. Form teaches discipline and fluency within the mind.

Now, you don't necessarily get up in front of your concert audience and play your arpeggios and scales and finger exercises for them. But without that practice, you will not do nearly as well in concert.

More to the point, the grail of a poet should be to use form in a way that it is completely unnoticeable. The point of form is to shape a poem, not warp its natural shape, to give it rhythm and mastery, not to get in the way of the message. How can one learn the true skill of disorder unless one is willing to become fluent within order? Case in fuckin' point: Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. The form there is not distracting; it is part of the piece. It is essential to the piece.

Unless you learn some of the rules and practices, the standard ideas of an art form, you will not be able to break them with any real skill. Learning about rhythm, for example, allows you to see how breaking a rhythm affects your tone.

Learning to write in different rhythms - trochees, iambic forms, anapests, - teaches you to effectively use rhythm to communicate an emotion or scene more effectively. It increases your vocabulary and your skills within word choice. Once you do the practice, it comes naturally. When I write, really write, I am not sitting down and saying "okay i believe anapestic hexameter would be good here," but my endless practice, my exercises, inform my rhythm. It comes through.

Learning about meter, line length, the pentameter and the alexandrine and the sestina, teaches the skill of line division and the framing of an idea or phrase within a poem. It teaches control, discipline, efficiency in expression.

One doesn't expect the practice sessions to generate much, but in many cases, I have accidentally landed on a good piece in the middle of my workout, something very much worth keeping. I may keep it in the form, or I may shift it entirely, but within the practices are the seeds of real art.

More to the point, those skills are essential within the editing process. (editing a poem? Gods forbid! you'll ruin my Fabulous Natural Voice!) One may not think in terms of technique within a rough draft, but going back to edit, it should be a very conscious tool. Could the rhythm of this line be more effective for the scene I'm trying to set? Would using some alliteration or sibillance make this more vivid? Am I just one word, one shifted rhythm, away from the perfect line?

Without the scales we play in private, the music won't be as good.

Haiku does not teach form. Haiku teaches haiku. As such, it is a noble form, and will be excellent for learning brevity if one tends to ramble. But many forms require similar brevity and precision. Allow me to recommend my personal bible: Babette Deutch's Dictionary of Poetic Terms. Use it. Read it cover to cover. Create an altar to it. There are many others just as good; that's just my personal favorite.

Deutch's definition of poetry has been a watchword for me for many years: "A poem cannot be paraphrased without injury to its meaning." I have taken that to mean that I need to be able to defend every single word choice within a piece.

Until I started playing in the 30/30, I rarely showed my work to anyone before I knew I could do that. That didn't mean it was perfect yet; it meant that I'd paid enough attention to it to make it worth sharing with someone else. Why make someone else do simple editing work that I can get out of the way ahead of time? That way, the message can be the focus rather than the technicalities.

Order and chaos inform one another. Without one, the other is simple, incomplete. Poems need both to work.

and furthermore:

enjambment.

feh. double feh.

bijou

Your points are well taken. Except:" Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. The form there is not distracting; it is part of the piece. It is essential to the piece. "
It is a shit piece, not one of best and (fit for High School) he could have easily written it better without that form.
Your point about the discipline ofeEditting - well taken. Agree.
Meter and Rhyme - two aspects out of how many in the poetic toolbox, and the concept of meter may be flawed in so far, as it was adapted from the Greek and Latin. It meant vowel length to them, NOT STRESS. Also, one would think that the same line written twice should have the same stress pattern in it. Try it, it varies. I heard a recording of the great DT, guess what? Stress patterns, word length and even syllable count vary from region to region.

Sorry babe, advice was to a person who said he had a tendency to ramble. Lord God almighty do we need another ramblyass form poem. Let him pracitice brevity., Let him pick the tools that serve him best.


"I have taken that to mean that I need to be able to defend every single word choice within a piece. "

Here you have my heart, but in a form, compromises have to made, a novice will use filler for the beat, the rhyme, and again, Lord God almighty another ramblyass form poem.

I'm sorry did I repeat myself? Think of it as a refrain.

 

[ghost_girl]

a novice poet will never receive better advice than that.

miss you, number man.

yep, I miss him too.

and want to take a sec to thank 1201 again for all the help he has given me over the years, and for the Interact 7, hell, for all the interact threads, for making me FEEL like a real person and for listening to me when I cried on his shoulder.

besides being such a talented poet, he is and has always been a good friend to me.
If I'd had a mentor like the any one of the ones I have here, when I was a teen, i would be a poet to be reckoned with

 

[ghost_girl]

apples and oranges.

the thread was directed at "novice" poets, not advanced poets.

99% of the novice poets i've seen who begin with rhymed form never get past it.

Yep, and you know, form poetry for the novice is like being thrust into an advanced chem lab class when you're 10. It is scary. I have had teachers that were so figgin anal that was all they let us read and to this day, I pity their closemindedness..

My mom introduced me to poetry when that was basically all there was and to this day, I remember-

"Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..."


it should be introduced as an option, not as the only way. we were not all born to fit into an archaic mold of what the past defines as poetry. My mother wrote poems for me when I was a kid, and they were rarely form. I think she was way beyond her time and if my father hadn't made fun of her, she would probably have been published as well.

Now, i do write some form poems, but they are not good enough to share. They are not my forte, not my strength and I don't really have anything to prove, so why inflict my crappy form poems on you guys...

 

[ghost_girl]

When I first started with writing poetry, all I knew to do was to go mostly by feel. These words look good, those don't, these seem to work in a paragraph form, these are almost tugging themselves into rough line. Whether any of them turned out better than so-so, who knows, but I love the doing of it - so many ways to say any one thing.
Now of late I've wondered about actually looking into the discipline of form. But I checked a couple sites and there's like, hundreds, thousands of them, overwhelming.
I'm leaning towards the haiku, mainly because of what seems to be something of an enforced brevity (since I do have a rambling tendency).
For a novice poet interested in a few forms, what would be a recommended next step? If not the haiku?

Thanks!

HI hmmnmm,

I just now got back to your original post.

I would say that the haiku is one of the hardest form poems, despite its brevity. From the haiku I have read on this site,most people do not do them correctly. They seem to think that if the syllable count is correct, it is a haiku, and that is wrong. It takes a subtlety, an understanding of the form. I have tried and tried, but despite knowing what I am supposed to do with it, I cannot get it just right.

My daughter had a teacher in HS that made them all write a sonnet. She gave them the choice of the two types and they could write on any subject. She had a blast with it, I helped her with the meter. She made an A.

Now, this kid is not even remotely interested in poetry, she has a scientists mind, but she enjoyed the sonnet and i Can guarantee you it was her first attempt at poetry. and her last

I would suggest a sonnet, but don't want to minimize the effort that it takes to write one.

 

[champagne1982]

Yep, and you know, form poetry for the novice is like being thrust into an advanced chem lab class when you're 10. It is scary. I have had teachers that were so figgin anal that was all they let us read and to this day, I pity their closemindedness..

My mom introduced me to poetry when that was basically all there was and to this day, I remember-

"Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..."


it should be introduced as an option, not as the only way. we were not all born to fit into an archaic mold of what the past defines as poetry. My mother wrote poems for me when I was a kid, and they were rarely form. I think she was way beyond her time and if my father hadn't made fun of her, she would probably have been published as well.

Now, i do write some form poems, but they are not good enough to share. They are not my forte, not my strength and I don't really have anything to prove, so why inflict my crappy form poems on you guys...

LOL, panty drawer poems have a place - right there under my lacy, sleep-with-me-tonight, brazil-cut, bikinis. So, I'd rather you inflict us with your panties than the poetry hiding beneath them... oh! Wait! I want the poetry... ermm at least the thing the poetry is a metaphor of . Anyway, share a good one when you've the time .

 

[ghost_girl]

LOL, panty drawer poems have a place - right there under my lacy, sleep-with-me-tonight, brazil-cut, bikinis. So, I'd rather you inflict us with your panties than the poetry hiding beneath them... oh! Wait! I want the poetry... ermm at least the thing the poetry is a metaphor of . Anyway, share a good one when you've the time .

me show my panties, I mean form poems to you? One of the mistresses of the rhyme? I think not, I embarrass easily...and some of them even have skid marks... (the poems, not the panties)

 

[Tihmmnmm]

I heard the ruckus, thought this topic was closed.
I really appreciate the thoughtful help here, but I think I'll just go and figure it out on my own. That's half the fun anyway.

 

[twelveoone]

yep, I miss him too.

and want to take a sec to thank 1201 again for all the help he has given me over the years, and for the Interact 7, hell, for all the interact threads, for making me FEEL like a real person and for listening to me when I cried on his shoulder.

besides being such a talented poet, he is and has always been a good friend to me.
If I'd had a mentor like the any one of the ones I have here, when I was a teen, i would be a poet to be reckoned with

Oh gosh darn, make me blush. You have humbled me with what you wrote as poetry. Always remember that.

 

[twelveoone]

I heard the ruckus, thought this topic was closed.
I really appreciate the thoughtful help here, but I think I'll just go and figure it out on my own. That's half the fun anyway.

Nah. I'm on a roll.

From the dust jacket of The Ode Less Travelled - Unlocking The Poet Within by Stephen Frywhich I recommend, as it is much more fun and useful for a novice than Fussell's Poetic Meter & Poetic Form.)


"If you learn how to write a sonnet, and Fry shows you how, you may or may not make a poem. But you will unlock the stored wisdom of the form itself"
-Grey Gowrie, The Spectator (UK)

So what good is knowing how to make a sonnet if you can't make a poem?

Furthermore, what form is Eliot's Wasteland and has anyone bothered doing a scansion of Ginsberg's Kaddish? Sorry, not poetry? What is Steven's Thriteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird?
Marianne Moore, Robinson Jeffers?
But what the fuck do I know?
Nothing. Got that? Nothing, except I know that there is more..and I'm going for it.

Shed the scales.

 

[manipulatrix]

.....

 

[ghost_girl]

So what good is knowing how to make a sonnet if you can't make a poem?

ah HA!

That was what I was thinking. any monkey can plug words into a form, but not all of those plug ins turn out poetic. So , my lil baboon arse will enjoy reading them, and leave the poetics in form to those who can do.

Angeline just KEPT pointing me towards Judo and her sonnets and I found one she had written that made me tear up. Her Christmas sonnet. Damn, what feeling. so sad. I love works that make me cry.


1201, what form IS wasteland?

 

[Tihmmnmm]

There an endless number of ways to write.

The only way to write... is to write.

Put pencil to paper or fingers to keyboards and just let the words spill out of you. Make mistakes. Make horrible embarrassing mistakes that say nothing you'd ever say. Over and over and over again.

This is beautifully said.
Unfortunately it appears to be outdated, since apparently someone passed a law in recent days (unbeknownst to you and me it seems) which decrees that the scribe who wishes to embark on an exploratory adventure with a pen/pencil/keys must first obtain express written poetic permission from... well, they didn't say precisely from whom. And any whiff of humor about all of it - especially the self-deprecatory sort - lands you in The Chair, not even a perfunctory jury of your peers trial.
So it looks like you and I may be on the run from now on.
We'll have to find a place to hide out.

 

[hmmnmm]

------

 

[Tihmmnmm]

Forms?
Oh they got forms alright.
But if you miss just one little dot, one little iota, they'll deny your permit.
They make INS look like the Merciful Sisters-in-Laws.

 

[manipulatrix]

.....

 

[Tihmmnmm]

I bet you could get plenty of poems, and I'd delight to read and sup each one, whether they observe form or whether they ramble in meterless rhapsodic prose poemlike fashion. Because it's all good.
Actually it was that flimsy-headed other half who started this thread. If I'd caught him in time, I'd stopped him from hitting that Button, spared us all of this thread that never needed to be.
See, I can bring things down to earth...

 

[manipulatrix]

......

 

[Tihmmnmm]

hush, or I'll use one of these parables

 

[Tihmmnmm]

If that doesn't work, I'll use epistles
meterless epistles

 

[unpredictablebijou]

There an endless number of ways to write.

The only way to write... is to write.

Put pencil to paper or fingers to keyboards and just let the words spill out of you. Make mistakes. Make horrible embarrassing mistakes that say nothing you'd ever say. Over and over and over again.

Word.

bijou

 

[foehn2]

Untitled

from Meditation At Oyster River (Roethke)

I would unlearn the lingo of exasperation, all the distortions of malice and hatred;
I would believe my pain: and the eye quiet on the growing rose;
I would delight in my hands, the branch singing, altering the excessive birds;
I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form;​

Although many of Roethke's poems are more than 60 years old now, I always considered many of them to be masterpieces in the modern application of form to poetry. That is, the way the poems were fashioned, the poetry seemed to magically create the form which was employed, rather than the form itself forcing the poet to be unfaithful to his original intent.

The whole thing reminds me of the Comanche's legendary skill at horsemanship in this part of the country, in the 19th Century. I've read that a Comanche warrior, upon acquiring a horse, would get on the horse and then not get off, until he and the horse had become one in spirit.

I look at poetry as a great garden: there are some weeds, and certain growths that don't attract me at all. But there are things that I don't quite understand, yet are beautiful; tangled masses that my mind can't unravel, yet they please my senses; flowers of ruffled petals or orderly petals with interesting and surprising symmetry.

I personally love to try to employ form, and find it in many cases to be freeing, rather than restrictive. Some forms are more difficult to work with than others, but I enjoy butting heads with the Muse, so to speak. Even when I am writing "free" verse, or "experimental" verse, there is generally an invisible form, or at least some sort of framework, that I am trying to work within.

But there are so many elements to "form"! A Petrarchan sonnet with an octet, sestet, volta, in strict iambic pentameter with perfect rhyme is likely to be vapid for me. I'd as soon be served a plate of supper consisting of a stick of butter. The form would be very nice, I suppose, but it would be vastly unappetizing.

I'd encourage anybody who wants to learn more about form to give it a thorough thrashing... God knows I've butchered my share! But don't neglect the other ingredients that poetry needs, either. I'd recommend reading some poems that impress, even right here at this site... practice scansion, even in the free verse. Practice finding slant rhyme, subtle cases of alliteration and assonance. Look how disruptions in meter make rhythm more interesting, and how rhythm reinforces meaning.

I feel very silly writing all this, but these are things I think. I believe there's room for all of us, and it's pleasantly surprising to find poets who create so beautifully and think so deeply right here on this site.

One of these days, maybe I'll write a sonnet, and break it into lines of free verse. If no one notices, I'll be pleased.

(Stimulating thread; I've enjoyed all comments.)

 

[hmmnmm]

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