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Symposium Homepage
The Symposium
West Chester
Poetics
Formalism
Translation
Form and Narrative
Humor
Book Publication
Closing Thoughts
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Panelist
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Topic Discussions
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Alex
Pepple |
1. Why do you write in form?
2. For those who write in both form and free verse, how do you decide when to
choose what, and what is your insight into how similar or dissimilar your
writing approaches are in both cases?
3. What elements of craft and sense do you consider necessary for any
good poem, and what are the extras necessary for a good formal poem?
4. For those who teach poetry, what are the most important skills you
try to inculcate in your students aspiring to be formalist poets.
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Mark
Jarman
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I take it by "form" you mean in traditional English verse. But I
do not always write in meter and rhyme or one of the forms of English
verse, like the sonnet. Certainly when I began writing, I worked hard at
learning the craft of verse. But I did not attempt to write seriously in
form until dealing with the subjects of my book Questions for
Ecclesiastes. The nature of the religious and personal material I hoped
to address required some way of distancing or controlling what threatened
to be sentimental or special pleading. Writing in iambic pentameter
rhyming quatrains and sonnets kept me honest, or so I felt.
I teach a poetry writing class at Vanderbilt in which the emphasis is the
craft of verse. Students try their hand at ballad stanzas, rhyming
tetrameter couplets, blank verse, iambic tetrameter quatrains, sonnets,
the villanelle, the sestina, syllabic verse. Naturally I want them to
learn the tradition of English verse, though as examples I use mainly
contemporary American poems. In every class there are a couple of students
who take to this way of writing and remain with it. The others, if they
continue to write, flee back to the arms of free verse. But they do so, I
hope, with a stronger sense of what makes a line of poetry, with a sense
of it as a measure of rhythm and music.
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Rachel
Hadas |
Mark Jarman's phrases about formal verse keeping him honest, and its
distancing or controlling of special pleasing, apply to me too, I think
....anyway, Mark, thanks for the good words which I am airily lifting.
Without the constraint of at least meter, I increasingly find my work
is self-indulgently verbose and hence unmemorable. Meter alone cannot
wholly curb such tendencies, but it goes a long way. Rhyme and stanzas go
even further. Does this mean all "formal" work is lapidary,
succinct, memorable? Of course not. Does it mean much free verse is
diffuse? Yup.
When students get meter into their ears, one of the first things that
happens is that develop a far firmer sense of the poetic line; whey a line
begins and ends as and where it does, how enjambment works, the choices
they do and do not have with line breaks. They also have a firmer grasp of
poetry they read.
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R. S.
Gwynn |
I write in form because (I like to think!) I do it well. Since I always
want to write as well as I can, I would be making a mistake to try to
write in a mode (free verse) that doesn't suit me. Poets must write out of
their strengths; if free verse is their strongest way of expressing
themselves they should write in that mode. If meter is the preferred
method, then one is stuck with it. At least I am. I have been writing
metrically (and usually with rhyme) exclusively for over 20 years now, and
whatever comes to me comes in meter and stanza. Sometimes I envy those who
can do both free verse and metrical poetry, but it's not for me. At least
not at this stage in my career. I don't exclude any options for the
future, but I don't feel restricted by form and I can't imagine getting to
the point where I would think it a hindrance rather than an essential.I do think that beginning students should learn as much about form as
possible, and I follow (in a jr/sr level course) roughly the same program
that Mark Jarman does. Syllabics, ballads, blank verse, sonnet, repeating
form, etc. I try to link each formal requirement with some kind of generic
one—descriptive poem (usually syllabic), dramatic monologue (blank
verse), narrative (ballad), and so on. I was recently impressed to learn
that James Dickey (of all people) used roughly the same method. In my
advanced workshop (senior/graduate) there are no formal requirements,
though I do encourage forms when I find that a student has written a poem
that would do better in some kind of form. Several of my students have won
prizes for these kinds of revisions; recently one recast a poem about the
waltz into an anapestic pantoum and it won our top poetry prize. I think
the value of learning about form is that it gives the poet a wide range of
options for dealing with a particular subject. In this case, the
repetitive and circular structure of the waltz (in 3/4 time yet!) matched
the form. In all of my writing classes I assign at least two 500-word book
reviews of contemporary books of poetry and require that the students
purchase the books. I also have them purchase a subscription to a literary
magazine—sometimes Hudson. This fall I will probably assign Tar River
Poetry, which is a nice eclectic publication.
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A. E.
Stallings |
I have always written in form—it seems to come quite natural to me—but
for a long time I fought against it. The results still had formal elements—strongly iambic, often, with internal rhymes, etc., rather
pretentiously imitative of T.S. Eliot. This was because, I suppose, I
thought to be a serious poet (which I very much wanted to be) in this day
and age one had to write free verse. Yet I never stopped writing
occasional sonnets and other purely formal verse however, purely for my
own enjoyment and the amusement of friends. Then it slowly dawned on me
that nearly everyone—myself included—preferred my formal poems to my
more "serious" attempts. And it turned out, strangely enough,
that these were easier for me to publish.
I now write exclusively in form, but I do sometimes use a purely
accentual unrhymed line, which appears and functions very like free verse.
Though I am not anti-free verse, and admire those who do it well,
increasingly I find that I have little desire to read it, that it does not
hold any interest for me. There are almost no free verse poets whose work
I regularly revisit. Form has served poets since the beginning of time,
through all sorts of changes in history, philosophy, science, technology.
To think that our era is somehow fraught with more ambiguity and
difficulty than our precursors—and that therefore closed forms cannot
deal with our special circumstances, as the argument weakly goes—is
absurd and smug.
As for the special requirements of a formal poem, I like to paraphrase
Ezra Pound's injunction that poetry be at least as well written as prose.
Formal verse should be at least as well written as free verse.
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Diane
Thiel |
My first loves in poetry were “formal,” though I certainly didn’t
term them that. There’s something in that very word which makes one
think of corsets. (All the words — meter, stress, have these negative
connotations...) I agree with others who would like to come up with a
better name for “new formalism...” Names aside, though, I do often
enjoy working within the bounds of a certain form, perhaps giving it a new
twist, but playing by most of the rules...
In college and grad school, I would bring a piece such as a ballad into
workshop, and it would subsequently be leapt upon by my peers. Over the
years, I think I developed a kind of “secret form,” that would not
keep the poem from being “taken seriously,” as Alicia says. (In the
past few years, I’ve become quite familiar with Kay Ryan’s work — and
I very much admire her often quite secret formal qualities)
Over the years, I have found my way back to my natural (more "formal")inclinations
in poetry — but I think my travels through other “schools” — so to
speak — have “charged” my work in new ways (surreal elements,
surprising pairings of words...) I write both form and free verse.
Sometimes I feel like the shape of a poem chooses me along the way. But I
definitely think my free verse is “informed” by my early influences. I
like the sound of poetry in form — although some subjects, for me, don’t
feel as true within as strict a structure. I’m not quite so sure why.
Perhaps I’ll never quite know. Sometimes form is a vehicle to find a
poem. I might think it is a sonnet or pantoum , and then the form drops
away and I discover the poem, informed by that pattern of repetition.
Sometimes I think it’s free verse — and then I notice a near-sonnet or
triolet, etc. appeared on the page, accidentally, and some revision will
bring it home.
I revise incessantly — which is probably one of my strengths, but I
also recognize it as a potential weakness. I often fear revising the
energy of a poem away — turning it into something it is not. I’m always
trying to find that balance — to know when a poem feels “right” to ME,
despite the different filters through which others might read it. I’ve
received polar responses from different individuals (even readers who I
think have a similar aesthetic) about particular lines or changes — I’m
sure the other panelists can relate.
I think it very important that students work in meter and the different
forms and always include this as an element of my poetry classes.
Recently, my graduate students at UMiami have confessed to me that though
they arrived with some negative preconceptions about form, they have since
recognized how this return to the basics has given their work a new
energy.
I’m not likely to give up either form or free verse completely,
though I can’t really say at the moment. One thing I know — I like music
of form and I telling stories in my poems. Sometimes the two meet
beautifully. Sometimes, for me, the story (or subject) seems to demand a
bit less
precise structure. I’m always trying to find that balance in a poem — between form and subject, the original energy, and the craft.
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