Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Critique, Discussions Able Muse - a review of poetry, prose and art

Forum Left Top

Notices

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #51  
Unread 03-04-2013, 03:36 PM
Max Goodman Max Goodman is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 2,253
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lance Levens View Post
is it possible that the urge to find newer forms is merely an admission--this is brazenly autobiographical-- than one can't master the old ones.
What does it mean to master a form?

Is finding and using a new form easier than using an old one? I think that if the form is built of formalist building blocks, it presents similar challenges, with the added step of devising an appropriate and workable form.
Reply With Quote
  #52  
Unread 03-05-2013, 08:26 AM
Maryann Corbett's Avatar
Maryann Corbett Maryann Corbett is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Posts: 9,656
Default

Lance wrote:
Quote:
is it possible that the urge to find newer forms is merely an admission--this is brazenly autobiographical-- than one can't master the old ones.
I certainly won't claim that I've mastered any of the old forms. I keep at them, or perhaps they keep at me, obsessively.

But I'd like it not to be an obsession, or a tired habit, and that's one reason I'm looking for newness just now. Pushing the brain over the same track sometimes results in retread thinking, repeating themes I've used many times already, and failure to reach for fresh diction.

Another reason is that as a reader, I really do like variety better. The Larkin method of alternating short and long, dark and light, makes me happy. To infuse variety into a bunch of one's poems, one has to write varied stuff.

And I have the same question as Max: I'm not entirely sure what "mastering a form" would mean. Perhaps that too is a reason I don't focus on whether or not I've done so--although I have the greatest admiration for those of you who write those Nemerov-winning-and-placing sonnets.

To return to presenting examples, Amit Majmudar's poem in the current Poetry (see Susan's thread on Acc Mem) is nicely novel in form and in its punning approach.
Reply With Quote
  #53  
Unread 03-09-2013, 08:01 AM
Esther Murer Esther Murer is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 308
Default

Maryann,

I'm late as usual, but I do seek out new forms (even invented one recently which will show up soon....)

In the lone poem of mine that got into SCR I copied a meter and rhyme scheme from Richard Wilbur.

Then there's Bob Newman's site, which has a wealth of oddball forms:
http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/index.htm

I love the Virelai post-moderne, which I think is his own invention.
Reply With Quote
  #54  
Unread 03-09-2013, 01:40 PM
Maryann Corbett's Avatar
Maryann Corbett Maryann Corbett is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Posts: 9,656
Default

Thanks especially for the link, Esther. I realize now I'd stumbled onto that site before, but now I'm in a state of mind to appreciate it and will make better use of it. It will take some sorting out to separate the rarely used from the newly invented.
Reply With Quote
  #55  
Unread 03-09-2013, 01:47 PM
Janice D. Soderling's Avatar
Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 14,175
Default

Ah, Richard Wilbur! I was reading "Still, Citizen Sparrow" earlier today

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171799

and couldn't stop marveling.

He has used a simple envelope verse abba, and amazingly simple rhyme words, and created a poem so rich and complex that I hid under the bed for a while.

Not long though, it was too dusty!

I am still keen on trying out new forms, but when I get my moxie back, I will exercise using envelope stanzas.
Reply With Quote
  #56  
Unread 04-20-2014, 07:57 AM
Esther Murer Esther Murer is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 308
Default

I'm resurrecting this thread to note that Bob Newman's volecentral.co.uk site appears to be gone, but much of the content thereof is in his book Fifty Shades of Verse, which is available as a Kindle book on Amazon. No print edition, alas.

Esther
Reply With Quote
  #57  
Unread 04-21-2014, 03:24 PM
Tony Barnstone's Avatar
Tony Barnstone Tony Barnstone is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 749
Default Nonce Sense

Hi All,

An article I published some time ago on the contemporary sonnet has a number of nonce rhyme strategies, if you scroll down to:

COUNTER-PRINCIPLE IV: USE SLANT, SIGHT, REPETITION, INCLUSION, ANTONYM, HOMOGRAPH, REVERSE RHYME, AND bouts rimes INSTEAD OF TRUE RHYME

Here's the link: http://www.cortlandreview.com/featur...rnstone_e.html

Enjoy, Tony
Reply With Quote
  #58  
Unread 05-02-2014, 01:05 PM
ross hamilton hill ross hamilton hill is offline
Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 2,238
Default

It's a long essay so I will come back to it and read it more thoroughly. I also have thought about the free verse v metrical dilemma. 40 years ago many magazines would stipulate 'no rhymed or metrical verse accepted' it was considered old fashioned and I suppose the editors were tired of being inundated by pale copies of Keats et al. Like everyone else I wrote almost exclusively in free verse and used various strategies to make my poems 'modern' particularly writing short poems that imitated advertising. Very limiting, but then 1970's poetry was in serious decline, the new media of LP records and cassettes meant song-writers were the gods and people got their metrical fix from songs and not just the poetic songwriters like Bob Dylan and the whole hippy era, it started much earlier. Recorded music meant people could listen over and over to a record, so lyrics could be complex and/or poetic. They always have been of course, but now song writers could make a very good living from it, poets were 'starving in an attic'.
Free verse was a reaction to the stale feeling of metrical, especially of rhyme, but free verse also had obvious limitations and problems. The main one I think is the fact that metrical verse is easy to remember and quote, it leaks into our conversational repertoire, free verse as rule doesn't, it was much more an intellectual exercise.
The media is very important to poetry, unlike music, poetry has not had a change in media since the printing press, 'slim volumes of verse' became a derogatory term. Poetry readings, again an image reeking of pretentiousness. But we all know that's not so, poetry is magic, so what happened?
Well we were inundated with fabulous musical poetry, you know the list, Dylan, Cohen, Mitchell, Young, and many many more bands and singer songwriters filled the airwaves with poetry. 45s, LPs, cassettes, CD's, videos, film, radio; new media were helping songs like crazy to spread their message. Written poetry shrunk. I think that is where the problem lies. It didn't matter what style of poetry you wrote, nothing sold very much.
Some say they are sick of traditional forms, that free verse frees you. Nonsense, original poetry takes original talent, it's all about content, about lived experience, about having something to say. If you don't have that, well, what do you have, empty forms.
I am thrilled with the internet, who'd've thought a technology first used by the military would be such a boon to poetry.
'The medium is the message' or at least a good part of it. Bring it all on, all styles, all forms and all techniques. It might not last! But at the moment we can read poems as they are born, I find it thrilling.
You no longer have to publish books, enter competitions or submit to magazines or ezines perforce. Put it up on Eratosphere and you have an instant, understanding and critical audience. What more could a poet want, if you want money, well write novels like Hardy or get a job in publishing like Eliot, but really what's it matter, you want people to read your work, that's where the payoff is.
Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant but I've thought about this for some time. I love all forms of poetry, if they're good. Techniques? well as long as they're not intrusive, as long as 'technique' does take over the poem and drown out it's theme. That can happen with free verse as well as sonnets.
'make all things new'
kind regards
Ross
Reply With Quote
  #59  
Unread 05-02-2014, 03:11 PM
Janice D. Soderling's Avatar
Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 14,175
Default

Quote:
You no longer have to publish books, enter competitions or submit to magazines or ezines perforce. Put it up on Eratosphere and you have an instant, understanding and critical audience. What more could a poet want, if you want money, well write novels like Hardy or get a job in publishing like Eliot, but really what's it matter, you want people to read your work, that's where the payoff is.
One might remind here that Eratosphere is not a vanity site. The purpose of this workshop is NOT to post to be read by a wider public than the poet would otherwise reach.
Reply With Quote
  #60  
Unread 05-03-2014, 05:11 AM
ross hamilton hill ross hamilton hill is offline
Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 2,238
Default

withdrawn, not worth it.

Last edited by ross hamilton hill; 05-03-2014 at 05:54 AM.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



Forum Right Top
Forum Left Bottom Forum Right Bottom
 
Right Left
Member Login
Forgot password?
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Statistics:
Forum Members: 8,399
Total Threads: 21,840
Total Posts: 270,804
There are 1937 users
currently browsing forums.
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Sponsor:
Donate & Support Able Muse / Eratosphere
Forum LeftForum Right
Right Right
Right Bottom Left Right Bottom Right

Hosted by ApplauZ Online