[Jim Moonan]

Originally Posted by Nick McRae

A question for the Metrical poets....

(Isn't it just like me to speak about something I know little about?!)

I will take a shot at this — mostly just to see if I can. It always helps to articulate something in order to get to know it : ) I've asked myself the same questions. In short, I think, 1.) there are no hard and fast rules when writing metrical poetry. The real measure is in its degree of regular rhythm/musicality, and 2.) the answers vary depending on the expectations of the poet/reader. But formal poetry is a different beast. The rules are much more defined and confined, more or less, to the blueprint/rules of the particular form (sonnet, villanelle, etc.)

I've read poetry since I could read. I never gave much thought to the metrical aspects or the form in which a poem is written. I just knew what I liked. I missed many opportunities to become properly educated in the poetic tradition. I had my chances but never committed myself to learning (life happens). Instead, I have learned what I know through home-spun poetic instinct. Personally, I’m attracted to the sonics and imagery and rhythm and the alchemy those things create in my imagination. I listen for passion and conviction and look for light. I rarely bother with the "metrics" of writing poetry — although being here on the Sphere has helped educate/sensitize me to the power inherent in metrical and formal poetry. I remember being shocked to learn that Robert Frost wrote mainly metrical poetry. To me, his voice was so fluid I never thought of it as being anything other than natural speech. But I also think that all good poetry is metrical. I like to think I write with rhythm. I had some training in music composition and music as a written language. I find it most helpful to think of poetry as music in the shape of words. Just as music is written in a time signature (3/4, 4/4. 6/8, etc.) poetry dances on the page to a rhythm it invents that is all its own.

Since I arrived here on the Sphere I've grown to love good villanelles and cringe at bad ones, to love good sonnets and be nonplussed by mediocre ones, to be lured into the orbit of tightly rhymed poetry and thrown out of orbit by by poetry written in stiff, stilted language.

For the most part I've found writers here to be quite tolerant of what is posted to be metrical poetry. The metrical board certainly gets more notice.

If you are serious about learning to write metrically poetry and/or formal verse, you're in a good place here. There is a mountain of lessons to learn.

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