Advice for Writers: formal poetry

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Using Poetic Forms, Part 1

To begin with, how do you decide to write a formal poem, as opposed to free verse? (By a formal poem, I mean a fixed form such as a sonnet, sestina, ghazal, tanka, etc.) Maybe you just read a poem in a particular form, and you feel you’d like to try it out. Or there’s a form you’ve always wanted to try, and suddenly you feel like you’ve got the chops to actually write it. Sometimes there’s a form kicking around in your mind, the way a song gets stuck in your head. It’s just there, waiting to be put in the game, like a player nervously pacing around the dugout. (OK, I know I’m mixing metaphors here.)

If it’s the case that a form is already eager to be part of your poetry, then maybe your next idea for a poem wants to go in that form, even if the form hasn’t yet been introduced to the story or idea or feeling that is hoping to be your next poem. Once the two knock into one another, the form and the idea for the poem, that collision can activate both, like particles in a linear accelerator.

The alternative to writing in a fixed form is to write in free verse, although some say free verse is also a form. The advantage to free verse is that the language is liberated so it can find its own rhythms, line-lengths, and endings, so that it’s not saddled with any structure. Structure can sometimes reign in emotion or ideas, because the constraints of the form limit spontaneity and flow.

But sometimes form is exactly what you need to give shape to the feeling or idea in your mind. The form becomes a perfect container to hold what’s teasing your mind. It’s as if the Jello mixture of your poetic idea needs a mold to give it shape, color, and flavor, or it will just melt away. (Now we’re really deep into mixed metaphor, once we’re into chilled desserts!)

In my experience, it’s really an either/or situation. Either a poetic form is tugging at my coat, asking to be noticed, or it’s not. If it’s not, I go with free verse. If it is, then I have to wait for the right idea for that form. But more often than not, the idea and the form arrive almost at the same time, like two different connecting flights that both funnel passengers to the same plane.

In the blogs that follow, I will not provide an exhaustive catalogue of all the possible poetic forms. I'll just touch on a few that resonate deeply with me.

Other recent posts on writing topics:
Using Poetic Forms, Part 1: Introduction; Part 2: The Sonnet; Part 3, The Sestina; Part 4, The Ghazal; Part 5, The Tanka; Part 6, The Villanelle

Zack's most recent book of poetry, Irreverent Litanies

Zack's most recent book of translations, Bérénice 1934–44, An Actress in Occupied Paris by Isabelle Stibbe

How to Get Published
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop
How Not to Become a Literary Dropout
Putting Together a Book Manuscript
Working with a Writing Mentor
How to Deliver Your Message
Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?
Why Write Poetry?

Praise and Lament
How to Be an American Writer

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop, Part 1: Whose Comment Are You Reading?

Many writers attend workshops to get comments on their creations. Workshops can be incredibly helpful, but they can also be confusing. For one thing, people’s reactions are often completely contradictory. “I especially love the ending,” says one person in response to your latest opus. Then the person sitting adjacent comments, “It’s good, but you really lose it at the end. The whole piece falls apart on the last page, where it becomes trite and predictable. That doesn’t feel like the right ending for this piece at all.” So who is right? How can you tell?
You have to pay very close attention to all the comments that people offer about your work. I write down every single comment that anyone makes in the writing group that I show my poems to, no matter how trivial or unfamiliar or wrong a remark may seem at first. But I also write next to the comment the initials of the person who made the remark. When I hand comments to a writer, I always put my name or initials on the copy.

Why? One of the things you need to identify is the aesthetic of the person who is making the comment. Sometimes you know that a person has a certain bias that you may or may not agree with. Let's say you've written a sestina about working in a fast-food joint (I'm thinking of Jan Clausen's wonderful poem, "Sestina: Winchell's Donut Shop"). You bring it to your workshop and someone says, "I love the idea of your poem, but I don't like formal poetry. It's too stiff. Why don't you rewrite it as free verse?" This comment might be accurate, but it might completely miss the point that you wanted to see if the sestina form could be used for such an unlikely subject as fast food donuts, and whether the repetitions of the sestina form could reflect on the monotony of fast-food jobs.

Even if Elizabeth Bishop were to rise from the grave and bring to your writing group a great sestina, you know in advance that workshop member would jump right in and say, “Liz, I have to tell you, I hate formal poetry.” That doesn’t mean that you always have to agree with this member's comments. Put her or his initials next to that advice, and keep in mind that person's artistic preferences. You need to observe and analyze the taste of those who give you comments, and figure out where it does and does not overlap with your own. In fact, that’s not a bad way to figure out you own aesthetic, by measuring it against the comments of others. Listen carefully to everything your peers say, even what they say that has nothing to do with you, or even to do with writing. You’ll find that certain critics you can usually trust on certain questions, and you can rely on others for completely different issues in your writing.

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Zack’s new book of poetry, The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens and Other Poems on Aging. Order in the USA Order in the UK

Zack’s most recent translation: The Water Drinkers and Other Sketches of Paris in the Romantic Era by Henry Murger