I have a serious question that is not meant to be quarrelsome or passive-aggressive.
I just subscribed to your site because I like some poetry. However, I could care less about form. I realize that to those with their MFAs--I was married to a woman with an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona--that may make me a troglodyte and not worth talking to.
I understand that impulse since I realized how futile it was for me to talk to her about things like Chaos and Complexity Theory. We all have our areas.
So, if I'm not concerned about forms but the message I get from the words, am I in the wrong place?
PS, I realize I could spend time learning more about forms--obviously not Plato's Forms-- modern and postmodern poetry (does postmodern exist?) but my other interests are where I choose to spend my time learning.
Thanks for subscribing, Jim. And I don't take your question as quarrelsome or passive-aggressive. I'm glad you asked.
If you are enjoying the poems you find here, you are not in the wrong place. Nor are you wrong for disliking a poem, or certain kinds of poetry.
In my opinion, a fixed form,* if used skillfully, won't necessarily be apparent from a first read, which for many (probably most) people may be the only read. I often include notes on form because I think such comments and pointers will interest other poets who might like to experiment. But if you find the notes boring, intimidating, or otherwise unengaging, I hope you will skip them. They are not important to the primary experience of reading the poem.
Also, an important element of my poetics (that is, the way I think about writing poems) is that I mostly use a conversational tone and try to make my poems intelligible to an intelligent reader, who probably isn't a poet and may not even like most poetry.
This isn't to say that thinking about one of my poems is never necessary. But I am not working in an avant-garde register, where words may be deliberately estranged from their ordinary meanings. There may be layers of meaning in one of my poems, and rereading the poem may reveal those layers. But I'm not hiding meaning or using private codes that a reader has to decipher. So if you're getting something meaningful and enjoyable from what I write here, that's great. And if you're not, maybe I've failed, or maybe a particular poem is just not for you, or maybe both are true.
Most of us were taught poetry in very limited ways, sometimes by people who didn't really like poetry themselves. Some MFA programs are wonderful and freeing for the poets who enroll in them, and others entail and transmit the worst things that can come from being based in an English department. I have a dear friend, a subscriber to this Substack, who insists that the only form of poetry that counts is "Roses are red, violets are blue." He thinks what I'm doing here isn't "real" poetry, but he enjoys it, so I'm not going to argue with him.
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* I say "fixed form" because every poem, even free verse, has a form. Fixed forms (sonnets, pantoums, villanelles, sestinas, and so forth) have formal rules, which contemporary poets are always breaking, bending, and expanding, when they're not inventing other forms, like today's sonnenizio, or Terrance Hayes's American sonnet (which he borrowed from the older American sonnet invented by Wanda Coleman), or Jericho Brown's duplex, and many more. My fixed form tends to be syllabics (that is, use of a specific number, or sequences of numbers, of syllables per line), and then I sometimes take my syllabic approach to existing forms (including all the ones just mentioned). @Annie Finch, a specialist in meter, has defined poetry as "patterned language," and the pattern may be just about anything--the number of syllables or metric feet to a line, the number of lines, the number and form of the stanzas, use and repetition of sounds, repetition of certain words, and on and on. Poetry is one thing you can spend a lifetime learning about while still doing good work right where you are in your development as a poet.
and it shouldn't be a chore. I believe that if it is not fun to write it, it shouldn't be written. Likewise, if it is not fun to read it, why bother? I play with forms, but I stick to the simple ones because I don't wanna bother with villains or toilets. Give me a good limerick any day!
I appreciate Jim’s question and your response. I enjoy reading your notes but rarely pay that much attention to the form. I AM intrigued by the Cento form, as you know, and the pantoum and the duplex. But I can rarely even remember any of the other ones and never track the syllables. I read for pleasure and meaning, mostly.
"The triolet, thought to have been invented by minstrels in 13th century France, is a brief poem of eight lines, with the first line being repeated as the fourth and seventh lines and rhyming with third and fifth, while the second line serves as a refrain in the eighth and final line and rhymes with the sixth."
In other words, why don't I just save myself some time and blow my fucking head off.
The rhyme scheme of the triolet can be expressed as ABaAabAB (with the capital letters depicting the repeated lines). The length of the lines themselves can vary, but are usually metered, most commonly written in iambic tetrameter (four feet or eight syllables) but almost as often in iambic pentameter (five feet or ten syllabl BOOM!💥
Deeply affecting
You are, as always, making me think. Thank you for that.
Deeply affecting. You make me think. About sticking to limericks.
LOL.
I have a serious question that is not meant to be quarrelsome or passive-aggressive.
I just subscribed to your site because I like some poetry. However, I could care less about form. I realize that to those with their MFAs--I was married to a woman with an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona--that may make me a troglodyte and not worth talking to.
I understand that impulse since I realized how futile it was for me to talk to her about things like Chaos and Complexity Theory. We all have our areas.
So, if I'm not concerned about forms but the message I get from the words, am I in the wrong place?
PS, I realize I could spend time learning more about forms--obviously not Plato's Forms-- modern and postmodern poetry (does postmodern exist?) but my other interests are where I choose to spend my time learning.
Thanks for subscribing, Jim. And I don't take your question as quarrelsome or passive-aggressive. I'm glad you asked.
If you are enjoying the poems you find here, you are not in the wrong place. Nor are you wrong for disliking a poem, or certain kinds of poetry.
In my opinion, a fixed form,* if used skillfully, won't necessarily be apparent from a first read, which for many (probably most) people may be the only read. I often include notes on form because I think such comments and pointers will interest other poets who might like to experiment. But if you find the notes boring, intimidating, or otherwise unengaging, I hope you will skip them. They are not important to the primary experience of reading the poem.
Also, an important element of my poetics (that is, the way I think about writing poems) is that I mostly use a conversational tone and try to make my poems intelligible to an intelligent reader, who probably isn't a poet and may not even like most poetry.
This isn't to say that thinking about one of my poems is never necessary. But I am not working in an avant-garde register, where words may be deliberately estranged from their ordinary meanings. There may be layers of meaning in one of my poems, and rereading the poem may reveal those layers. But I'm not hiding meaning or using private codes that a reader has to decipher. So if you're getting something meaningful and enjoyable from what I write here, that's great. And if you're not, maybe I've failed, or maybe a particular poem is just not for you, or maybe both are true.
Most of us were taught poetry in very limited ways, sometimes by people who didn't really like poetry themselves. Some MFA programs are wonderful and freeing for the poets who enroll in them, and others entail and transmit the worst things that can come from being based in an English department. I have a dear friend, a subscriber to this Substack, who insists that the only form of poetry that counts is "Roses are red, violets are blue." He thinks what I'm doing here isn't "real" poetry, but he enjoys it, so I'm not going to argue with him.
-----
* I say "fixed form" because every poem, even free verse, has a form. Fixed forms (sonnets, pantoums, villanelles, sestinas, and so forth) have formal rules, which contemporary poets are always breaking, bending, and expanding, when they're not inventing other forms, like today's sonnenizio, or Terrance Hayes's American sonnet (which he borrowed from the older American sonnet invented by Wanda Coleman), or Jericho Brown's duplex, and many more. My fixed form tends to be syllabics (that is, use of a specific number, or sequences of numbers, of syllables per line), and then I sometimes take my syllabic approach to existing forms (including all the ones just mentioned). @Annie Finch, a specialist in meter, has defined poetry as "patterned language," and the pattern may be just about anything--the number of syllables or metric feet to a line, the number of lines, the number and form of the stanzas, use and repetition of sounds, repetition of certain words, and on and on. Poetry is one thing you can spend a lifetime learning about while still doing good work right where you are in your development as a poet.
Again, Jim, thanks for your question.
and it shouldn't be a chore. I believe that if it is not fun to write it, it shouldn't be written. Likewise, if it is not fun to read it, why bother? I play with forms, but I stick to the simple ones because I don't wanna bother with villains or toilets. Give me a good limerick any day!
I have no form
Which allows me
to very slowly
increase entropy in the universe
I appreciate Jim’s question and your response. I enjoy reading your notes but rarely pay that much attention to the form. I AM intrigued by the Cento form, as you know, and the pantoum and the duplex. But I can rarely even remember any of the other ones and never track the syllables. I read for pleasure and meaning, mostly.
"The triolet, thought to have been invented by minstrels in 13th century France, is a brief poem of eight lines, with the first line being repeated as the fourth and seventh lines and rhyming with third and fifth, while the second line serves as a refrain in the eighth and final line and rhymes with the sixth."
In other words, why don't I just save myself some time and blow my fucking head off.
The rhyme scheme of the triolet can be expressed as ABaAabAB (with the capital letters depicting the repeated lines). The length of the lines themselves can vary, but are usually metered, most commonly written in iambic tetrameter (four feet or eight syllables) but almost as often in iambic pentameter (five feet or ten syllabl BOOM!💥
Have you tried writing one? Jonathan Potter has a good one up today. Bet you could write a good one too.
No
I keep returning to these lines:
"In bombed-out cities you have refugees all the way down. And dirt—
enough dirt, rubble and ash to stopper the mouths of the dying."
This is great. I love seeing how you put your poems together.
Thank you.
I love the Craft Note. I dig both of those poets and will give it a try. Thanks for sharing!
Love this! The writing is deep…the idea is an interesting one. I am going to be studying what you’ve done. As Janie, it makes me think!