History of Nonce Poetry?
 

Hello! I'm hoping someone may be able to help. I'm attempting to put together a presentation on nonce poetry that would include the history of the form. Since, arguably, all forms began as nonce forms, I've been having some trouble finding any specific information. Does anyone have a good source (book or article) on the history of the nonce? Thanks much for any help.

I've been sitting on my hands waiting for someone else to reply to this because I was interested in Kristin's idea and wanted to see the answers.

I wasn't sure whether I was alone in my feelings on the subject. Sometimes I do things that I think are fine jokes and just wait to see if anyone "gets" them. These are mainly subverted forms and hidden syllables that I find hugely satisfying.

I find it hard to use the term "nonce" in this connection, though, because in Britain it is a term for a predatory paedophile although I do use "for the nonce" to mean "for the time being".

So, for the nonce, I'll say no more. I just wanted to bump this up because it deserves some sort of acknowledgement. And to add extra questions. Why are you all so silent on the subject? Is it because, like me, your instinct is to hug these secrets to yourselves?

And does it still count as a nonce form if you do it more than once? Or, more interestingly, does it only count as a nonce form if you do do it more than once...

Kristin, you would perhaps get more response if you introduced yourself and said more clearly why you were asking or if you had participated in past discussions and the other members "knew you".

When I first read this I thought you were probably a kid wanting a quick fix for a high school or college paper due tomorrow. (it happens.)

But I see you have a blog and other creds.

In Lewis Turco's Book of Forms p.94, edition before the brand-new one, he precedes his list of form definitions thus:

One final note: Many poems are "regular", that is, traditionally formal, but the specific combinations of stanza pattern, line lengths, rhyme schemes, and meters have sometimes been created by the poet for that specific poem. Such patterns are called nonce forms.

He mentions also under the entry for "canzone" (...) the third stanza in each strophe (the sirima or cauda) is structurally different from the piedi, but the structures of piedi and sirma are nonce forms: the poet's invention.

There are seven other references in Mr. Turco's book.

Have you tried the library?

No offense intended at all, Janice, but...why in the world should it matter whether or not Kristin has "credentials" before she asks a question? It is, after all, a valid question, and in keeping with the topics of a lot of other threads here. And if Kristin is a "kid wanting a quick fix for a high school or college paper due tomorrow," what of it?

I just don't understand the aversion.

I don't quite understand the question. I'd be surprised to learn that someone invented the "nonce form," as if poetry started out on day one with sonnets, villanelles, etc., and only later did people figure out that they could devise their own ad hoc forms.

So a nonce form is one I invest, as opposed to one I take from the shelf fully formed. Presumably a Meredithian sonnet was a nonce form for him but not for us, since he invented it (if he did). I can't see how you can have a history of forms that are made up on the spur of the moment, as it were.

Ann, nonce, ponce, Beyonce. But isn't the last beyonSAY?

Shaun, I agree that I could have worded my statement more carefully. Sometimes, not often, but often enough to be remembered, a lazybones will, without identifying themselves or their purpose in asking, just pop up with a first post to get help with a school assignment. Then they plop back into the deep waters whence they came, perhaps with a passing grade.

I am not the first to post this kind of questioning reply.

I agree also, Shaun, that my post might have seemed unfriendly, not only to Kristin but to those who perceive me as Msssss. Scrooge, hissing and grouching on a daily basis.

Welcome Kristin to the Sphere and I hope I haven't frightened you off. I hope you will hang around and make many more posts and comments. It's a lovely place to learn and the vast majority are perceived as friendly and helpful.

(Though I did give an answer of sorts, didn't I? The only one so far.)

Cross-posted with a bunch of folks while I was thinking.

Well, Shaun, I had the same reaction as Janice. Kristin is a student at the U of Wisconsin, and if she didn't google until her fingers bled to come up with the information that Janice did - and more - before joining the Sphere, getting on line, and asking a pack of strangers to do her homework for her; then she's taking advantage of the kindness of others, gaming the system, etc. If, on the other hand, she's done a good deal of basic research and is using the Sphere to augment her other work - bless you, Kristin.

Either way, however, I agree with Janice that - once you get beyond simply suggesting a book or article - Kristin's request was sketchy. Lesson for today, Kristin - if you're going to ask people to help you in writing a paper it's both gracious and extremely helpful to your cause if you take some time to introduce yourself, and provide more background on where you are, what you know, and where you want to go. The more you provide in terms of defining your request, the more informative and responsive our guys are going to be.

(And, whatever you do, don't mess with the word "nonce". It's one of my solid alibis. Whenever I'm lost, or screw up a form, or cheat, I can wave a hand airily in the air and mutter something about "nonce". It's the formalist's equivalent of It's Chinatown, Jake.)

I think Ann, Roger, and John all gave very good answers, Janice, so you are not alone in being helpful. I waited to write because I share their bafflement as to what is being asked. (If you don't want to be thought of as unfriendly, don't be unfriendly, dear Janice. Better an unscolded miscreant than a scolded innocent, no?)

If the question is what poems have been written in nonce forms, that requires research. Look at Donne and Tennyson and Barnes and Hardy and everyone. There is, too, the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics for starters. Paul Fussell's Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. But read poems and think about them.

Here is Paul Valéry:

Sometimes I am the kind of man who, if he met the inventor of the sonnet in the underworld, would say to him with great respect (if there is any left, in the other world):

“My dear colleague, I salute you most humbly. I do not know the worth of your verses, which I have not read […]; but however bad they are, however flat, insipid, shallow, stupid, and naively made they may be, I still hold you in my heart above all other poets on earth and in Hades! … You invented a form, and the greatest poets have adapted themselves to that form.”

I always find him amusing in his enthusiasms, but I think he is here mistaken. The best sonnets are those where the Sonnet has been adapted by the poets -- noncely or not.

Best,
Marcia

No. Poesy did not spring fully "formed" from the brow of some mystical muse. All forms must have started somewhere and it's the little nicks in their insulation where the "what-ifs" and the "yes, buts" leak sparks that start fires that Kristin is looking for. What triggers them? Do they occur at moments of social change, periods of affluence between conflicts? Is there something within poetry itself that spawns the need for change? Are we talking evolution here, as distinct from (Oh, for Pete's sake lets not go there...).

Who are the noncers? I keep thinking of Hecht and Hollander and their ridiculous, hilarious, irresistible double dactyl. A series of rules, each more outlandish than the last, all set up to be followed by gullible idiots besotted with forms-for-form's-sake to whom it was offered as double-dactylic, two-fingered salute. Oh, Yessss!

Is a nonce form a response to a need or a bid for freedom? When does a nonce form become an established form - is it when enough people have passed it from hand to hand till it's polished like a pebble? Is it when the noncer's name's forgotten?

Roddy Lumsden invented the "Sevenling" but he based it on the shape of a poem by Anna Akhmatova. Where did she get it from? How many other forms are born this way?

John - help me out here - what was that form called a "Davidian" - who invented that one, and why?

There is mileage in your idea, Kristin. In fact, it's bursting with juice. Perhaps you need to start with a rough timeline of established forms and then track them back to their noncenesses, establish a thesis and test it to destruction.

I thought there might be others here who'd fancy kicking it around a bit, which is why I bumped it up. Oh, dear - I'm sorry.

Variations of matter and meter (some elegant) from the oral traditions to the present?

Ralph

I've been getting myself tied in knots ever since Kristin first posed her question. What knots me up is that she proposes to talk about nonce forms and to discuss "the history of THE form." That makes it sound as if nonce forms are all one thing.

Now, it's absolutely true that every form we now take as a received form goes through a period of development. Lots of them were taking shape during the early Renaissance, and there are bristlingly complex books of form by people like Eustache Deschamps, and Christine de Pizan is using them and adapting them and making up her own, and other people are developing the sonnet, and so on, and so forth. Julie Kane's doctoral dissertation is about the history of the villanelle, and there's a nice accessible essay about that in the anthology "Villanelles," which some of us are in and even more of us own.

But when does there come to be such a concept as "THE nonce form"? When do people start recognizing the received forms as received so that they are to be contrasted with a something else, which is the not-received-and-just-now-invented thing we call the nonce form? When did that term come to be used?

I have no answers to these questions. I ask them to find out whether that's the question Kristin is asking. If I'm reading her correctly, I suspect that's not such an easy matter to research.

I have to say, Maryann, that some of those questions are really interesting. It's the kind of thing I'd personally love to write a paper on.

Apologies if my earlier post seemed a little snarky. Ijust happen to believe that, in many respects, Eratosphere is the best place for someone to ask a question like this, as evidenced by some of the metaphysical (metapoetical?) ruminations already posted in this thread.

By the way, one could make the argument that there's no such thing as nonce, since after a poem is created in a form, it's now a form. Or is a form only a form when more than one person uses it? What if a poet, acclaimed for writing in a standard form, decides to write a bunch of poems in a completely invented form. Is that form still nonce? Hmm...

If I was going to write a "History of Nonce Poetry" I would start with Greek dithyrambs and strophic choral odes. The strophic ode involved inventing a large, complex stanza made of metrical parts never before arranged in precisely that way (though the individual parts were certainly in wide circulation) and then repeating it for the duration of the poem, often with an equally nonce 'epode' thrown in and repeated after the strophes and antistrophes. The poet wrote the music to go with his new stanza forms and choreographed the dancing as well. Besides the tragedians and their choruses, Pindar and Bacchylides are the two major ancient poets to write strophic verse, though one also should include Simonides and Alcman & perhaps others. This style of verse didn't really have Latin imitators, at least not that I know of (maybe Seneca wrote some choruses or something), but there is a minor tradition of Pindaric odes in English and French, including Ben Jonson, Ronsard, Cowley, and Thomas Gray.

In a study of nonce forms I would not only look at Pindaric odes but any poems calling themselves odes, as these are likely to derive from the Classical tradition. The Italian canzones and such (mentioned above) provide a different stream of the tradition, interesting in themselves and, I think, tributary to the 'songs and sonnets' of a Donne or Herbert. The Romantic odes of Keats and Coleridge seem to me nonce forms in the classical stream, though not the Immortality Ode--even if WW was thinking of Pindar, his stanzas vary in length and his variations don't repeat. Same goes for Dover Beach--not really nonce forms so much as hetero-metrical verse paragraphs.

It is harder than I figured at first to specify what exactly should be considered "nonce stanzas." They are clearest in longer stanzas (say, 8-12 lines) that involve unusual but repeated metrical variations, though an odd rhyme scheme would also qualify. But is it possible, say, to write a "nonce" quatrain, or are there so few elements to play with in a quatrain that whatever you do will just be one of the endless variations available in our standard song forms? I think maybe it is possible, and would suggest the stanza in Wilbur's "A Sketch" as an example, mainly because it straddles an interesting line between quatrain and tercet. What's important though is to what extent there is a stream of tradition for a particular form. If I use a strange sonnet rhyme-scheme that has been used before, I don't think the mere coincidence, whether or not it was intended, would prevent my use of it being a "nonce" form. But if the form takes on its own life, and becomes a generalized part of a tradition, then it has morphed from a nonce to a received form.

C

Of course there can be a nonce ["occurring, used, or made only once or for a special occasion"] form, but only once. Its virginity being lost, it may or may not become subject to common usage. Every word, every tradition, had a nonce origin, but not every nonce word or occasion (or form) becomes common property or tradition.

Good recent example is the paradelle, my candidate for the nonciest of nonce forms. And of course within a few short months on the evolving poetic calendar appears an anthology of them, some of which even make coherent sense. But that in itself is perhaps an ironic destruction of rather than affirmation or "establishment" of the form, which was created specifically (and uniquely) as a non-sense parody of fixed forms. Does a poem which makes sense truly affirm and continue a form which deliberately didn't?

On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets. But in the centuries old tradition of the carmen figuratum (shaped poem), each poem has a nonce structure. At least I can't imagine anyone else writing a poem which replicates the form of, say, Hollander's "Swan and Shadow" or Patti McMcCarty's "Make Mine Darjeeling" (a sonnet written in the shape of a teacup) or my "Carousel" or "Genesis" (sea horse) or "Madonna and Child," etc., etc.

Jan

Here is what you asked for, Ann, complete with my example.

Tuneable Tweak

This is the Davidian, a verse form invented by Wendy Webb of Norfolk. The Elizabethan cant is for the most part from Thomas Middleton. I found it in Robert Graves’s essay, ‘Lars Porsena or The Future of Swearing’.

Tuneable Tweak, Melodious Minotaur,
Sweet-breasted Bronstrops to the great O’Toole,
May forty barbers’ basins sound before
Instead of trumpets, sleek siphonophore,
Dainty, nectareous toadstool.

Mouth we in majuscule thy syllabub
Of syllable, Harmonious Hippocrene,
Thou Bantling Bawdstrutt of Beelzebub,
Thou Prestidigitant, thou Rub-a-dub,
Thou Scapegrace Forkytaileen.

In one week mayst thou have thy two ruffs torn,
May whifflant pissers reek upon thy tomb,
May sidling spiders weave their cobweb-lawn
Only for thee, Squab-stinkard, Beggar-born
Behemoth of the bedroom.

Thou Fucus, thou Finagling Finger-flay,
Thou rusty piece of Martlemas Bacon,
Ere thy poor pudding drop in pieces, may
Thy roarers suck thee dry and nowise pay.
Till thy bruised bubbs be shaken,

And the dumb dead awaken.

It seems to me that "nonce" as a concept of form could only really come to be in relation to already existing received forms. So the historical directional arrow might be more chocken-and-eggish than it might seem.

David R.

Thank you!
 

Wow. Thanks, all, for your responses to my query--and for the suggestions on proper forum etiquette.

Full disclosure:

I am, as Michael discovered, a student at U of Wisconsin (where I’m studying creative writing), and the presentation I referred to in my original post is for a course I am taking: Contemporary Poetry in Traditional Forms.

I certainly didn’t mean to offend anyone by my question or to ask as a quick fix (considering the layers of protocol I had to go through just to join Eratosphere, I don’t think posting on this forum could really be considered a quick fix).

I was assigned the nonce presentation in September and began my research right away--and quickly hit a brick wall when trying to find the history of the form, as the presentation requires me to do. To me, it seems that all formal poetry begins as nonce poetry, until one more poem is written in any given form. Like Roger and John, I didn’t quite understand and wasn’t sure how to proceed: Should I just begin at the very beginning (As Chris suggests--and, my goodness, thanks very much for sharing all of that information, Chris!)? And just like you, Maryann, I was in knots over how to present every variation in established forms as one form: the nonce. I shared my concerns with my professor, who conceded that the nonce may be “light” on history; however, she didn’t say that the history was nonexistent. So, I continued searching and maybe became just a little obsessed with figuring out if there is a history to point to. Considering that this presentation only has to be a few minutes long, I’m fairly certain I’m over-thinking things.

Like Janice, I found the definition in Turco’s [The New ] Book of Forms, along with his descriptions of nonce components in established forms. I also scoured the databases--and the library shelves before and after Turco’s book(s)--for any other mentions of the history of nonce forms. I didn’t find anything more than other definitions.

There were some interesting ideas in The Politics of Poetic Forms (edited by Charles Bernstein), particularly in the article by Ron Silliman (“Canons and Institutions: New Hope for the Disappeared”), where Silliman mentions that “every poem, each trope, each linebreak has its epistemological, ontological and socio-political implications,” and that “the poem without theory exists solely as a concealment, the hiding of a primary dimension for the purpose of causing its effects to seem ‘natural’ or ‘self-evident’” (166-7). Those very intriguing ideas have really nothing to do with the history of nonce poems, at least as far as what I’m doing, but they do seem somewhat related to your questions about the development/necessity of new forms, Ann.

Anyway, I wasn't having any luck finding information, so I started thinking of other resources. I am “facebook friends” with poet Jennifer Reeser, and in my desperation to find some information, I sent her a message there, asking if she might happen to have any ideas. She very graciously replied and referred me to all of you here.

All this being said, I am a poet, and I feel most at home writing in forms. Like Ann, I also make up my own forms--and for similar reasons: it is satisfying to complete something within certain, imposed boundaries, and it’s fun when someone catches what you’ve done. As proof, here’s a nonce of mine. Admittedly, it’s not the best poem, but I did enjoy writing it. (I’m not asking for feedback; I know there are proper channels to follow for that. It’s just evidence that I do write.)

One leaf, fallen too early,
skirts noisily down the path, oblivious
to the ruckus it makes as we sit
(side by side,
your hand on my knee, my hand on your hand,
your head on my shoulder, eyes closed).

Hidden in the August wind
is a chill that pushes it along, past the
green grass and pots of dill and basil
(bumblebees
try vainly to gather from day lilies,
who’d tuck their heads in from the breeze).

I feel you breathe, sleepy deep,
your fingertips softly tracing my own, and
the sun tries hard, but still we shiver
(as you wrap
your arms round me so tightly, and the leaf
rushes by, looking for its home).

---

Ann, I want to thank you for your interest and for bringing up some amazing questions. Thank you too, Marcia, for sharing that quip from Valéry. I agree with you about adapted sonnets. I’ve also looked at both the books you mentioned, as well as The Handbook of Poetic Forms (Ed. Ron Padgett) for examples of nonce forms.


Also, I’d like to mention that before posting my question, I did spend some time looking around the site. I’m really excited to be here, for exactly what has happened in this thread, as Mr. Russell pointed out. I love this very serious and philosophical (or “metapoetical”!) discussion of poetry. I do intend to be more involved than just to ask this random question, though I admit I’m feeling just a bit intimidated by the vast amounts of knowledge.

Thanks again, to all of you, for sharing your thoughts. They’re all much appreciated. I think what I'll probably do is state my original opinion on nonce poetry and then use a few examples of how nonces became received forms. I will be sure to mention all the help I received here, as well.

Best,

Kristin

Ah, now that you have found us, don't leave us. You have a bunch of friends (smart ones too) who want to follow your poetry.

Good luck with your paper and give us a report. (Ahem, that's a wish not an order.)

The rumors of my unfriendliness are greatly exaggerated. And that goes for Mike too.

Thanks very much, Janice, for your kind words--and help. I'll keep you updated.

Kristin,

Quickly, because I'm running out the door. The "nonce" term is not as widely used as some may think... I'd never heard it until I joined this site.

One of the things I find unseemly in that 'book of forms' is that the author shies away from accepting a form until more than one person uses it. Seems disingenuous, although perhaps pragmatic for his ends.

From a research standpoint, I think I'd change my search terms. I'd look for 'innovative' forms, or look for people who've developed their own forms. Berryman comes to mind. I always giggle when people quote Frost and say "I want to make every poem sound different." Tell that to Berryman, who wrote 385 poems in a single form, one he'd invented, and which (as far as I know) no-one else ever used. Is that a 'nonce' form? Does he make it into that book? I have to admit I don't know, because I threw it across the room when I got to that definition... ;)

Someone mentioned Meredith, which was an excellent hint. And there are lots of people who have invented their own forms, and then run with them, exploring what it let them do. If you look for those people, you may end up with a pretty interesting 'nonce' paper. I, for one, would love to read it!

Best,

Bill

You could also focus on the invention of several different known forms, such as sonnet, villanelle etc., then tie it back into how they were both nonce forms at the time of their creation. It might change the focus of your paper a bit, mind you, but it certainly satisfies the "history of nonce" idea, and there's certainly a lot more information on the history of many of these forms.

Hardy wrote 800 poems without ever repeating himself, "So various in their pith and plan." Oh sure, I still write an occasional Shakespearean sonnet or heroic couplet, but most everything I write is nonce these days, far more so than when I was a rookie.

That reminds me. In Mary Sidney's versification of 127 psalms, she used 126 different verse forms.

Ah, Tim, the Sphere does lend itself to hyperbole. And Hardy did create dozens and dozens and dozens of nonce stanza forms, but hardly 800 of them. Leafing briefly through his work, I spotted no less than twenty poems in standard ballad form: a4b3a4b3 (with usual metrical variations, of course) including poems as varied in content as "The Oxen," "The Dear," "Geographical Knowledge," and "The Bedridden Peasant." The 6-line variation a4b3a4b3a4b3 pops up several times ["Shut Out That Moon," "First Sight of Her and After," etc.], as do x4a3x4a3 and a4b4a4b4, and "The Darkling Thrush" has 8-line stanzas, simply doubling the ballad form. No less than six of the "Satires of Circumstance" are tetrameter ababcc, though he does play variations on the form in others. Even some of the more idiosyncratic stanzas are sometimes repeated. Impressive variety indeed, but not quite infinite.

I'd offer two other examples of poets who also revel in formal variety, creating many nonce forms--George Herbert and Robert Browning.

Jan

But Tim, you made exactly that claim at West Chester, and immediately had to walk it back, when confronted with actual evidence. Even Mezey told you it was inaccurate. So why keep repeating it? I simply don't understand, and I'm curious about the motivation. I must be missing something. Help!

Best,

Bill

This is an accurate statement, if you hold it up to the light, cut it in half and turn it sideways. Tim said Hardy never repeated himself -- which is too bad, since some of his poems are so good I wouldn't mind reading them again, and it would save time. If he'd said Hardy never repeated a form, well. . .

Best,

Ed