[Richard Epstein]

Like most questions predicated on definitions built into the query, these have not been useful. They seem to conceal a private agenda, as though the questions you really want to ask are too blatant for you. Let me help:

1. Must poems vote where they reside?
2. Would I let my daughter date a conceptual poem?
3. Does a conceptual poem require a corsage?
4. Has anyone ever inadvertently learned a conceptual poem by heart? If so, where does he reside?

RHE

[Roger Slater]

And, if conceptual poems are formal, what happens to them on casual Fridays?

[Brian Allgar]

Well, if you're a Catholic and you post them online, they turn into phish.

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Richard Epstein

Like most questions predicated on definitions built into the query, these have not been useful. They seem to conceal a private agenda, as though the questions you really want to ask are too blatant for you. Let me help:

1. Must poems vote where they reside?

Yes, unless they are U.S. Army poems that have been posted overseas.

2. Would I let my daughter date a conceptual poem?

No, you might end up with a shotgun Whitsun Wedding.

3. Does a conceptual poem require a corsage?

No, a body-bag will do fine.

4. Has anyone ever inadvertently learned a conceptual poem by heart? If so, where does he reside?

A friend of mine claims that he once did so, but if he tells you where he resides, he'll have to kill you.

[Carolyn Moore]

A few years back I wandered through many of the articles Janice provided earlier in this thread. Most of the conceptual poets who were asked for a definition of conceptual poetry sidled away into descriptions and did not provide both the genus and differentia required by the Aristotelian definition that has dominated Western thought for over two thousand years.

Definition aside, a problem with asking if conceptual poetry is "formal" is that people will answer according to the prejudice of the poetic camp to which they subscribe--or they will shrug to indicate that they don't care. I'm guessing some conceptual poets will answer "yes"; others will answer "no"; still others will shrug. Since "concept" rules all other matters in this poetic movement, some concepts could be about form; others could exist to defy it.

Some posters have grappled directly--others indirectly--with defining form. I used to think form was the structure that made itself apparent to the thoughtful reader (some forms, of course, are instantly recognized by careless readers as well). But I was humbled in high school by a Dylan Thomas poem ("Fern Hill") that I loved for its "sonics" (e.g., the barking "k" sounds in the description how foxes "barked clear and cold"). I had noticed a pattern of indentations of lines from stanza to stanza, but I had to be told that this was a syllabic poem (with variations in syllable counts in certain stanzas' final lines). This experience made me wonder if "form" could exist as private scaffolding apparent only to the poet as that poet shaped and reshaped a poem. Or does "form" exist only to the extent that it is discernable to at least some of the audience? If a form falls in the forest and no one (other than the poet) hears it, is it a form at all?

Alas, I have muddied the waters with more questions . . . but no sound answers.