Poetic Forms

IntroductionPoetry is written in closed or

open form.Closed form poetry is

characterized by patterns: verse, rhyme, meter and/or syllable. The content fits into the form.

Open form poetry is characterized by the lack of pattern. The content creates the form.

Open Form PoetryContent determines the form

of the poem.Punctuation, line breaks, and

white spaces become very important in open form poetry.

“Free verse”Concrete poemsShaped poems

Free VerseCavalry Crossing a Ford

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun -- hark to the

musical clankBehold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to

drink,Behold the the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the

negligent rest on the saddles.

Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford --while,

Scarlet and blue and snowy white,The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

Walt Whitman, 1865

Concrete Poems

I <')))><ing.Billy Eckles

Words create pictureMore a visual than a

literary formRelated to Pop Art

Roger McGough

LEO PEÑA

Shaped PoemsCreate a picture or visual

patternContent is more important

than shapeContent follows general

grammatical rulesShape complements content

of poem

Easter Wings

by George Herbert

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,Though foolishly he lost the same,

Decaying more and more,Till he became

Most poore:

With TheeO let me rise,

As larks, harmoniously,And sing this day Thy victories:

Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;And still with sicknesses and shame

Thou didst so punish sinne,That I becameMost thinne.

With TheeLet me combine,

And feel this day Thy victorie;For, if I imp my wing on Thine,

Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Dusk Above the water hang the loud flies Here O so gray then What A pale signal will appear When Soon before its shadow fades Where Here in this pool of opened eye In us No Upon us As at the very edges of where we take shape in the dark air this object bares its image awakening ripples of recognition that will brush darkness up into light even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now already passing out of sight toward yet-untroubled reflection this image bears its object darkening into memorial shades Scattered bits of light No of water Or something across water Breaking up No Being regathered soon Yet by then a swan will have gone Yes out of mind into what vast pale hush of a place past sudden dark as if a swan sang

Swan and ShadowJohn Hollander

Closed Form PoemsRecognizable patternsPatterns can be determined

by:o Stanza lengtho Metrical pattern (ex: iambic

pentameter)o Rhyme schemeo Syllable count

Haiku JapaneseSyllabic poetry: 17 syllables

o 1st line – 5 syllableso 2nd line -- 7 syllableso 3rd line -- 5 syllables

Seasonal reference Implied identification of

perceiver (poet) with perceived (subject)

Silent and still: thenEven sinking into rocks,The cicada’s screech

Basho

Sleepless at Crown Point

All night this headlandLunges into the rumplingCapework of the wind

Richard Wilbur

MeterPatterns of stressed and unstressed

syllablesThe basic unit of meter is a foot.Most common feet in English poetry:

o Iamb / o Trochee / o Anapest /o Dactyl / o Spondee / /o Pyrrhic

Metrical Lines

One foot monometerTwo feet dimeterThree feet trimeterFour feet tetrameterFive feet pentameterSix feet hexameterSeven feet heptameterEight feet octameter

Stanzas2 line stanzas: couplets3 line stanzas:

o tercets o triplets: aaa bbb ccc dddo terza rima: aba bcb cdc ded

4 line stanzas: quatrains5 line stanzas: quintets6 line stanzas: sestets7 line stanzas: septets8 line stanzas: octaves

COUPLETS

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens

William Carlos Williams

Limerick 5 line nonsense

poem First line ends in

proper name of place or person

Rhyme: aabba Meter:

o 1st, 2nd and 5th lines have 3 stressed beats

o 3rd and 4th lines have 2 stressed beats

Gervaise

There WAS a young BELLE of old NATCHezWhose GARments were ALways in PATCHezWhen COMment aROSEOn the STATE of her CLOTHESShe DRAWLED, When Ah ITCHez, Ah

SCRATCHez!

Ogden Nash

There WAS a young WOman named PLUNneryWho reJOICED in the PRACtice of GUNnery

Till one DAY unobSERvantShe BLEW up a SERvant

And was FORCED to reTIRE to a NUNnery.

Edward Gorey

BalladEnglishNarrative4 line stanzasMeter: Common Meter

o iambic tetrameter (4-stress lines) alternating with

o iambic trimeter (3 stress lines)Rhyme

o abab oro abcb

Refrains: exact or incremental repetition

Types of Ballads

Traditionalo Anonymouso Folk

Broadsideo Propagandao Social Protest

Literaryo Romantic poets

Ballad ConventionsConversational language -- dialectDialogueTraditional motifs:

o Problematic love affairso Supernatural seducerso Deatho Raids and battles o Murders o Hauntings o Shipwrecks o Political protesto Comical situations

Traditional Ballad

“Sir Patrick Spence”THE king sits in Dumferling toune, Drinking the blude-reid wine: ‘O whar will I get guid sailor, To sail this schip of mine?’

Up and spak an eldern knicht, Sat at the kings richt kne: ‘Sir Patrick Spence is the best sailor That sails upon the se.

’ The king has written a braid letter, And signd it wi his hand, And sent it to Sir Patrick Spence, Was walking on the sand.

The first line that Sir Patrick red, A loud lauch lauched he; The next line that Sir Patrick red, The teir blinded his ee.

‘O wha is this has don this deid, This ill deid don to me, To send me out this time o’ the yeir, To sail upon the se!

‘Mak hast, mak haste, my mirry men all, Our guid schip sails the morne:’ ‘O say na sae, my master deir, For I feir a deadlie storme. ‘Late late yestreen I saw the new moone, Wi the auld moone in hir arme, And I feir, I feir, my deir master, That we will cum to harme.’

O our Scots nables wer richt laith To weet their cork-heild schoone; Bot lang owre a’ the play wer playd, Their hats they swam aboone.

O lang, lang may their ladies sit, Wi thair fans into their hand, Or eir they se Sir Patrick Spence Cum sailing to the land

O lang, lang may the ladies stand, Wi thair gold kems in their hair, Waiting for thair ain deir lords, For they’ll se thame na mair.

Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour, It’s fiftie fadom deip, And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,

Wi the Scots lords at his feit.

 "Mother dear, may I go downtown         Instead of out to play, And march the streets of Birmingham                   In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and hoses, guns and jails Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone. Other children will go with me, And march the streets of Birmingham To make our country free."                                              “No, baby, no you may not go,For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children's choir."

BROADSIDE BALLADDudley Randall “Ballad of Birmingham” (1969)

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child Was in the sacred place, But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick, Then lifted out a shoe. "O, here's the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?"

Literary Ballad

Sir Walter Scott, “Proud Maisie”

PROUD Maisie is in the wood,   Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush,   Singing so rarely.  

'Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?‘— 'When six braw gentlemen   Kirkward shall carry ye.'

'Who makes the bridal bed,  Birdie, say truly?'—'The grey-headed sexton  That delves the grave duly. 'The glow-worm o'er grave and

stone Shall light thee steady;The owl from the steeple sing

Welcome Proud Lady.’

Sonnet

Italian originLyric14 linesIambic pentameter

SONNETS

Italian or Petrarchan Stanzas:

Octave -- presents problem

Sestet -- resolution or meditation upon problem

Rhyme: Octave --

abbaabba Sestet -- cdecde

or cdccdc or cddcdd or variation

English or Shakespearean Stanzas:

3 Quatrains -- present similar images

Heroic Couplet -- paradoxical resolution

Rhyme:Quatrains --

ababcdcdefef

Couplet --gg

Sonnet 90 by Francesco Petrarch

She used to let her golden hair fly freeFor the wind to toy and tangle and molest;Her eyes were brighter than the radiant west.(Seldom they shine so now.) I used to seePity look out of those deep eyes on me.("It was false pity," you would now protest.)I had love's tinder heaped within my breast:What wonder that the flame burned furiously?She did not walk in any mortal way,But with angelic progress; when she spoke,Unearthly voices sang in unison.She seemed divine among the dreary folkOf earth. You say she is not so today?Well, though the bow's unbent, the wound bleeds on.

Translated by Maurice Bishop

 XVIII by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

VillanelleFrench originOriginated with round danceStanzas and Rhyme

o 5 tercets: aba aba aba aba aba

o 1 quatrain: abaaLine Repetition

o 1, 6, 12, 18o 3, 9, 15, 19

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is born again.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,And arbitrary darkness gallops in:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bedAnd sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:Exit seraphim and Satan's men:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.But I grow old and I forget your name.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;At least when spring comes they roar back again.I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Mad Girl's Love Song

by Sylvia Plath

SestinaFrench originStanzas:

o 6 sestetso 1 tercet: an envoi

Repetition and linking of talons (the last words in each line):o a/b/c/d/e/fo f/a/e/b/d/co c/f/d/a/b/eo e/c/b/f/a/do d/e/a/c/f/bo b/d/f/e/c/ao ba/dc/fe

Atmosphere ranges from cozy to claustrophobic

Was blessed heaven once, more than an island The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.In that kind climate the mere thought of snow Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,Unable to conceive of Rochester,Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.

Dream as we may, there is far more to making Do than some wistful reverie of an island,Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester Gas and Electric Co., which doesn't mind Such profitable weather, while the natives Sink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.

The one thing indisputable here is snow,The single verity of heaven's making,Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.Under our igloo skies the frozen mind Holds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester. No island fantasy survives Rochester,Where to the natives destiny is snow That is neither to our mind nor of our making.

Here in this bleak city of Rochester,Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"Not all of them polite, the wayward mindBasks in some Yucatan of its own making,Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon islandAlive with lemon tints and burnished natives,

And O that we were there. But here the natives Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester Have sown whole mines of salt about their land (Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow Comes down as if The Flood were in the making.Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind

An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in makingRoasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.It might be well to remember that an island

"Sestina d'Inverno" by Anthony Hecht

Sitting at her table, she serves the sopa de arroz to me instinctively, and I watch her, the absolute mama, and eat words I might have had to say more out of embarrassment.  To speak, now-foreign words I used to speak, too, dribble down her mouth as she serves me albondigas.  No more than a third are easy to me. By the stove she does something with words and looks at me only with her back.  I am full.  I tell her I taste the mint, and watch her speak smiles at the stove.  All my words make her smile.  Nani never serves herself, she only watches me with her skin, her hair.  I ask for more.

I watch the mama warming more tortillas for me.  I watch her fingers in the flame for me. Near her mouth, I see a wrinkle speak of a man whose body serves the ants like she serves me, then more words from more wrinkles about children, words about this and that, flowing more easily from these other mouths.  Each serves as a tremendous string around her, holding her together.  They speak nani was this and that to me and I wonder just how much of me will die with her, what were the words I could have been, was.  Her insides speak through a hundred wrinkles, now, more than she can bear, steel around her, shouting, then, What is this thing she serves?

She asks me if I want more. I own no words to stop her. Even before I speak, she serves. Nani by Alberto

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