The Book of Forms (Revised and Expanded Edition)
 

In the primordial days before the Internet and West Chester when I was trying to teach myself how to write formal poetry in obscure isolation, I wore out my copy of Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms, so it is a great pleasure to have two poems of no enduring value included in his new revised and expanded edition. The index is a mess, but the text itself is a great delight by one of my favorite eccentric geniuses.

My pleasure is compounded by proximity to many past and current Eratoactivists: Mark Allinson, Catherine Chandler, Rhina Espaillat, Sam Gwynn, Jan Hodge, Robert Mezey and Robert Schechter (who has quite a number of poems included). Apologies if I or the index excluded anyone!

It would be an indispensable additon to your library even without the work of your friends.

This is marvellous news, Michael.

Congratulations to you and all the other spherians with poems in this new edition. I have a copy of the Third Edition (2000), which is well used but almost in mint condition; I'll donate it to the poetry group I sometimes go to, and treat myself to the new one!

In fact, I left off writing this to dash off to Amazon and order it. :)

Fantastic, Michael! Like Jayne, I have a Third edition, still in good shape, but it looks like I'm going to have to treat myself--oh, I can donate my Third edition to my school library, of course!

Charlotte

Mark Allinson!!! Now that's a name after my own name!!! G'donya, Hub!

(Mark is Rayne's dad, Jayne! The Sphere was such a different place when he was here! WAR all the time!!!! Great days...)

Thanks for news of the revised edition, Michael!

I've been looking forward to this. Thanks for announcing it.

I'm not giving away my old one until I see what's cut :o.

Terrific news, Michael. I'm ordering one on Amazon.

Wise words, Janice. The new book arrived today, and the first thing I looked up was 'Clerihew'; I do know the form but wanted to double-check the details because of the thread over on D & A. There isn't a specific section on it, so I'll be hanging onto my Third Edition after all, in case any other stuff's been cut!

No Clerihews?

What's been added? (Other than the great examples!)

I haven't done a comparison, Susan, but having both editions covers all the bases!

It's really great to see Spherians' work in the new book. (I'd list them but I'm scared of omitting someone.)

Thanks for this news, Michael, and congratulations. I've ordered my copy.

Best,
Jean

I have just one poem that I know about, Michael, but I hope you're right. I haven't seen the book yet (I guess there are no contributor copies), but I'll go order one right now. Congratulations to all who are in it, and to Lew especially if he happens to be looking in. (Editing in to confirm that I have just the one).

Jayne posted: "the first thing I looked up was 'Clerihew' . . . to double-check the details. . . . There isn't a specific section on it . . ."

Jayne, in the alphabetical section it is listed as "described in the section on satirical poetry." There it is defined as "a particular type of epigram," "a quatrain in dipodic meters," which is inaccurate. The clerihew is (and has been from its invention) non-metrical, with lines of (often extremely) differing length.

I am disappointed at how often Lew has misrepresented forms, another example being the double dactyl, of which he writes [boldface are his words]:

"The first line ... is always 'Higgledy-piggledy" [the original rules required that "the first line ... must be a double dactyl nonsense line, like "Higgledy-piggledy," or "Pocketa-pocketa..." In the first [1966] "compendium," nine of the 70 verses do not begin "Higgledy-piggledy," and while it remains typical to have the first line be nonsense syllables, increasingly that has not been the case, and frequently the first line is used narratively].

"The second line is a name." [Usually, yes, but the requirement was flexible even in the original "compendium," and abandoned altogether in a verse by Pascal (co-creator of the form) with "Pocketa, pocketa, / Bard of ill omen, I / Hereby renounce the / Poetical life.]"

"The second line of the second stanza [i.e., l. 6] is a double dactyl . . ." [The didactylic word is most commonly in the sixth line, but the original rules required only that there must be at least one didactylic word "somewhere in the poem, though preferably in the second stanza, and ideally in the antepenultimate line." In the original compendium it occurs in l. 5 eight times and l. 7 twelve times; four verses have more than one didactylic word.] ". . . adverb or other modifier." [The original rules make no such a restriction. In fact, though predictably a majority of didactylic words will be adjectives or adverbs, there are at least 22 didactylic nouns in the original compendium, including "hendecasyllables," "counterintelligence," "idiosyncrasy," "epithalamion," "verisimilitude," "valedictorian," and several German nouns.]

There is also, unfortunately, an error in his own example of the form, otherwise devastatingly clever:

. . . . .Higgledy-piggledy
. . . . .Hennery Longfellow
. . . . .Wrote out his verses in
. . . . .Meters and rhymes

. . . . .One might describe as
. . . . .Hiawathetical
. . . . .If one were Minnehaha-
. . . . .Ing betimes.

Since the name is pronounced Minnehaha, the last two lines as written are thrown off metrically and rhythmically. If, however, as I suspect was his intent, the lines were broken "If one were Minneha- / Ha-ing betimes" both the form and the rhythm would be corrected, and the pun on "ha-ha" more effectively emphasized. (P.S.: I pointed this out to him when the volume was still in the process of being put together.)

I smiled when, Lew being Lew, he couldn't resist "correcting" Billy Collins, "Who misspelled the form he invented" ["perhaps it should be spelled with an o"] and suggested that "merely repeating lines can be boring," which of course is the crux of Collins's joke. How ironic that an apparent printer's error sabotaged his own supposed improvement on the paradelle (or "parodelle") by omitting a line.

I write this not to denigrate the volume (it is certainly welcome and useful, and I am not ungrateful to be included in it), but to suggest that some caution be exercised when taking it as an authoritative guide.

Jan

Now if we would leave Mike alone for a bit, maybe he could finish judging the Nemerov competition.

As I mentioned to Jan elsewhere, there's a second error in that Hiawatha double dactyl. L5 is missing an unstressed syllable.

Oh, I'm finished...

There are plenty of problems with the old editions too, not the least of which is Lew's definitions of prose, verse, poetry, etc. But I won't reopen that old can of worms. In any case, whatever its faults may be, the book is an important and useful one and I think it is way cool that so many Sphereians -- current and emeritus -- are featured. I'll add it too my wishlist for sure.

Congrats to everyone involved.

David R.