[NADIA]

Lariat, here is my amateur spiel:
Is the poetic form used in a poem relevant to its theme? For instance, is the triolet to be used only for light verse? What theme(s) work best with the villanelle? Should I, a new poet, limit myself to the sonnet because it is the easiest to work with in English language?

-Nadia

[Solan]

Since nobody else has answered: I think Alan would protest at the characterization of sonnet as the easiest form. Far simpler are poems composed of couplets or quatrains. I think quatrains with rhyming schemes ABAB or ABBA - or possible xAxA (x stands for unrhymed) are the best to begin with. But why let yourself be stopped if you have an idea that just pushes you towards one of the more set forms like villanelle, sestina or sonnet? I mean: If the idea itself carries or can carry the repetition, then a versification of it would have a good chance of doing so as well.


------------------
Svein Olav

.. another life

[A. E. Stallings]

Just jumping in, with apologies to the lariat. In my experience, it is the poem that chooses the form, not the other way round. But of course, early on, one might want to do some exercises in particular forms. The sonnet is NOT the easiest form in English (and honestly, we see far too many "exercise" sonnets on the boards). Writing in quatrains, particularly xaxa is a good start. Or even blank (unrimed) metrical verse. Pantuoms and villanelles are "easy" forms, but are very, very difficult to get good poems out of.

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Nadia, I think what Alicia says is exactly right: the theme brings its form with it, not the reverse. Sometimes it's not clear at once why that form is "right" for this particu-lar poem, but trust the poem, at least until it's written: after tht, if you want to make revisions, and even radical ones, that's your right, and it's up to the poem to argue with you from line to line.

She touches on something else that's true, too: there's a difference between a poem and an exercise: the poem comes to you because it needs to be written, and before it becomes conscious a great deal of the work has already begun: the choice of meter, form, central metaphor, point of view, tone toward the theme and tone toward the reader, for instance. The poem knows before you do if it's going to be chummy or hostile or guarded, if it's going to speak openly or keep one hand in front of its mouth and so forth.
And exercise, on the other hand, is something written on purpose to learn or practice a technique. You decide consciously to write it, you set up the "problems" you're interested in solving in it, and you don't expect to keep it but to throw it out. Some very few of mine have surprised me by becoming "keepers," maybe because in the process of "practicing" I touched on something that really wanted to be said. But most of them end up in the waste basket.

In that sense, all forms are both "easy" and "hard." Easy to play with--and great fun!--in the process of mastering them, but hard to use in some fresh way that takes advantage of what specific forms can do without simply repeating, as if you were adhering to a template.

No, I don't think the triolet, for instance, has to be light verse: it may be used ironically to sound light and be saying something very different that belies the tone. That kind of opposition between tone and substance can be wonderful. My own villanelles--that's a form I like very much--tend to deal with obsessive thoughts, questions I can't answer that won't go away, but I did write one that imitates my mother's circular, demented speech during the late stages of Alzheimer's disease, while also conveying my grief over her condition. That one wrote itself with so little conscious "help" from me that I sometimes think I should have signed her name to it. When a poem begins with its mind made up as to form that way, the results surprise you as if you had had nothing to do with the process.

Solan is right: go with whatever you feel "can carry the repetition," do your exercise, and then see if something in it makes the leap into poetry.

[ginger]

from one beginner to another...I sometimes play around with forms when I find it's been a while since I've written anything. It helps me get something on paper. Starting with an idea not really worthy of an entire poem and seeing what directions the demands of form takes it is quite fun. And there have been several times that it acts as a sort of meditation, bringing out ideas I wasn't aware existed in the first place. If they're really good ideas, though, they often grow to the point where the form begins to feel confining and I end up re-writing in free verse. But, imho, starting out with form helps give the resulting free verse piece a rhythm and shape it might not have had otherwise.

I remember reading somewhere, a quote from Robert Graves perhaps, that the poem dictates the form; that some thoughts want to be vilanelles, sestinas, etc. I also remember thinking at the time that one would have to be some sort of genius to think in sestinas. But I've found that the more I read the more I see what he was talking about. Sort of like learning a foreign language. At first one thinks in his or her native language and then translates into the second language before speaking. In time though, one becomes comfortable enough that the second language comes more naturally and translation is less necessary.

Ginger

[A. E. Stallings]

Dear Ms. Lariat,

I love that villanelle about your mother. Would you mind posting it here?

[A. E. Stallings]

P.S. This is probably the greatest triolet in the language (by Thomas Hardy), and it isn't "light" by any stretch of the imagination.

AT A HASTY WEDDING

If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire
By bonds of every bond the best,
If hours be years. The twain are blest
Do eastern stars slope never west,
Nor pallid ashes follow fire:
If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire.

[NADIA]

Thank you all for your clarifying my confusion. Sorry for that comment about the sonnet being easiest. I do find it easier than other forms but I'll admit I didn't give that comment much thought.

Solan and Ginger, thanks for the pointers.

Alicia, thank you for posting that triolet by Hardy. I understand exactly what you mean now.

Rhina, thank you for your comments. It seems I spent too much time shaping what might have been finished work into a form. I'll try your approach and see what happens. I also love the villanelle but it doesn't seem to be a favorite here. I would like to read the villanelle about your mother if you don't mind posting it here. My poems always flow better in Spanish. In English I fret too much over form and meter and I often give up on what I've written. I love the process, though, so it's worth the trouble. I am also from the Dominican Republic. I truly enjoy your poems. I just took a peek at Tim Murphy's threads (Questions to Rhina and Introduction...) and learned that you are Quisqueyana. It gives me pride and pleasure to see what you've accomplished!

Again, thank you all.

-Nadia



[This message has been edited by NADIA (edited August 30, 2001).]

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Gracias, Nadia! And here goes the villanelle, for both you and Alicia:

SONG

From hair to horse to house to rose,
her tongue unfastened like her gait,
her gaze, her guise, her ghost, she goes.

She cannot name the thing she knows,
word and its image will not mate.
From hair to horse to house to rose

there is a circle will not close.
She babbles to her dinner plate.
All gaze and gaunt as ghost she goes--

smiling at these, frowning at those,
smoothing the air to make it straight--
from hair to horse to house to rose.

She settles in a thoughtful pose
as if she understood her fate,
her face, her gaze, her ghost. She goes

downstream relentlessly, she flows
where dark forgiving waters wait.
From hair to horse to house to rose,
her gaze, her guise, her ghost, she goes.

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Ginger, I meant to tell you that what you're doing--playing around with forms to see what happens--is a wonderful idea. Sometimes surprises happen, and you stumble onto a poem that you didn't know was there! But don't get discouraged and let it become free verse if it began formally: if you can, stick with it, even if it means struggling for rhymes and working with lines to make them "fit" into a meter. The best things happen, sometimes, as a response to that kind of struggle, connections that you wouldn't have seen other-wise. Resist the impulse, if you can, to just say what you mean in free verse, and see if you can sing it instead by sticking with some form. If it doesn't turn out, you can always throw it out, since it's an exercise you're doing to learn, after all.