[stephenspower]

I got into formal poems by writing sonnets. I like how they can be stanzaed: 4/4/4/2, 8/6, 4/4/3/3, etc. So I really took to rhyme royal later because it offered the same type of breaks but in miniature: 4/3, 2/2/3, 3/2/2, 2/3/2, 5/2, etc.

Ottava rima, on the other hand, has consistently frustrated me. It can be broken down in as many units as rhyme royal, but there's something, well, square about it (or, mathematically, cubic). Perhaps it's the odd number of lines in rhyme royal, but that scheme seems to push the reader down through terminal couplet to the next stanza, building momentum, whereas the terminal couplet in ottava rima seems to lock the stanza (mine, at least) together like a crystal and isolate it.

What are your most and least preferred rhyme schemes?

[Ed Shacklee]

I'm curious, Stephen. Are there any examples of your poems we might see? Apologies if I've been oblivious.

For myself, I've come to like aaa bbb etc. rhyme schemes a lot, and seven beat lines (I don't think it's accurate to call them fourteeners, as I lop the head off the first iamb so often). That's probably because I'm trying to write light verse. I have a hunch that temperament may have as much to do with favorite rhyme schemes as the poet's intentions.

Best,

Ed

[Michael Cantor]

A muted, earth-tone brown with a bit of olive in it - sometimes set off against a dark purple - is often my default position, but basically I think that if you're a writer you start off with something that you want to say - a thought, a phrase, a particular point or sense - and as the poem develops a good poem will tell you where it wants to go and in a sense find its own way. The form - or lack of form - the structure, let's say - has to support whatever the poem is intended to accomplish, and the poem has to work within the structure. I worry far more about that, and far less about what color is my villanelle.

Content, content, content. Content rules. Piece of cake!

[Janice D. Soderling]

Well, this thread is posted under Opinions and Criticism, so I guess it's the right place to say that I don't really understand the purpose of these slippery questions with no answer, Stephen.

Except to give everyone a chance to talk a little about themselves while the Muse is outdoors watching the meteor shower, such queries don't really have much purpose for a writer/poet.

The art and craft of writing decent poetry and prose (I think so anyway) is not remotely connected to pat little Q & A on say: What is your preferred rhyme pattern for a sonnet? Where does the poem reside? How many Ms and and how many L's should an elegy ideally contain? Do you do your best writing early in the morning or late at night? How many square feet is your writing space? Which literary magazine is best? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Pseudointellectualism is what it was called when I was young, and it is rather fun at a party when everyone is half drunk and full of that oceanic feeling, but are there answers that will satisfy such questions when we're all (I hope) cold sober?

Michael's post reminded me though about a book that I want everyone to read so I'll tout it while I'm here. I may be the last one to have discovered it, but if anyone hasn't yet read Finding a Form: Essays (1997) by William H. Gass, it is high time.

It is an absolutely brilliant offering of essays--halfway through I ordered all his other essay collections as well. Who needs food?

This is not about how to choose a form for your poem. He is the most magnificent prose stylist I have ever encountered. Bar none. Of course, I am always behind, but I bought this FaF collection on one of my unsuccessful attempts to purchase a copy of In the Heart of the Heart of the Country of which I've only the title story in anthologies. I hope someone reissues that book soon.

PS. I have also looked at reviews of Finding a Form and I found several reviews by bright young things who couldn't bear to be in the same room with a writer who was so learned and spoke so beautifully. So it may not be for everyone. Only for those who aspire to write beautiful sentences with memorable content.

Will I be sorry I posted this? Probably.

[Michael Cantor]

I'm not sorry you posted it, Janice - it said exactly what I was after, but more eloquently. Thank you.

[Mary Meriam]

Hi Stephen, this is a question dear to my heart. Gregory Dowling's essay, “The Fascination of What’s Difficult: Narrative Poetry in Strict Forms,” in
The Contemporary Narrative Poem: Critical Crosscurrents, edited by Steven P. Schneider, has a fascinating discussion of ottava rima, among other rhyming forms. Christopher Ricks writes wonderful things about rhyme. I often wonder which rhyme scheme I prefer. I wrote a poem with 7 quatrains that rhymes AABB in each quatrain - in other words, only two rhymes in 28 lines. The book of essays I mentioned might be helpful to you also in thinking about moving through stanzas in ottava rima.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Coincidentally, Mary, I was debating buying that book just yesterday but it was too expensive. even with the dollar at an alltime low, the handling and postage makes it astronomical. Lucky you. I'll keep it on my list though, and maybe when the reviewer editions come onto the used book market I can get it at an affordable price. I do covet it and even more now when you recommend it.

[dean peterson]

I like the question, don't have a good answer. And that oceanic, half-drunk feeling that Janice notes is something I think some of us should continue to aspire to, minus, of course, the bed-spins.

[Janice D. Soderling]

You don't have to aspire to it. All you have to do it is drink. Anyway that's how it used it be. Easy-peasy. The poetry that comes therefrom is pretty lousy though.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

I don't really understand the purpose of these slippery questions with no answer

I love Janice deeply, and yet I'm going to disagree with her here. If such questions help people get their thoughts in order, what's the harm?

Take Michael. Now, Michael knows full well that if you run into a poet who has "something to say," the best thing to do is to run in the other direction. As the cliche goes, people who have "something to say" should be writing essays, people who just love the sound of things should be poets. It's an overstatement, of course, but it has at least a crust of truth.

And yet, look what Michael says: "you start off with something that you want to say." It's embarrassing, an error, near heresy, a mistake. But as Lady Philosophy always held, we never learn anything when we're right. We only learn from our mistakes. Thus, the original simple question has given Michael a golden opportunity, a learning moment, an object lesson in writing things with humility and counter-thought. One might even say the poster has done Michael a kind good.

On the original question, there's nothing I loath more than ABAB. Except AABB. Now those *really* make me turn the page, and a few of them in a row lead to the book sailing out the window and down onto the compost pile, which is conveniently situated two stories below. I call it the defenestration of the conventional, and it grants a certain grim satisfaction, as well as supplying excellent mulch for spring plantings.

Thanks,

Bill