Poetic Forms

1. Poetic Forms

2. Introduction • Poetry is written in closed or open form. • Closed form poetryis characterized by patterns: verse, rhyme, meter and/or syllable. The contentfits intothe form. • Open form poetryis characterized by the lack of pattern. The contentcreatesthe form.

3. Open Form Poetry • Content determines the form of the poem. • Punctuation, line breaks, and white spaces become very important in open form poetry. • “Free verse” • Concrete poems • Shaped poems

4. Free Verse Cavalry 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 clank Behold 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

5. Words create picture More a visual than a literary form Related to Pop Art Concrete Poems I <')))><ing. Billy Eckles

6. Roger McGough

7. LEO PEÑA

10. Shaped Poems • Create a picture or visual pattern • Content ismore importantthan shape • Content follows general grammatical rules • Shapecomplementscontent of poem

11. Easter Wingsby George Herbert Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,Though foolishly he lost the same,Decaying more and more,Till he becameMost 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 shameThou 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.

12. 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 Shadow John Hollander

13. Closed Form Poems • Recognizable patterns • Patterns can be determined by: • Stanza length • Metrical pattern (ex: iambic pentameter) • Rhyme scheme • Syllable count

14. Japanese Syllabic poetry: 17 syllables 1st line – 5 syllables 2nd line -- 7 syllables 3rd line -- 5 syllables Seasonal reference Implied identification of perceiver (poet) with perceived (subject) Silent and still: then Even sinking into rocks, The cicada’s screech Basho Sleepless at Crown Point All night this headland Lunges into the rumpling Capework of the wind Richard Wilbur Haiku

15. Meter • Patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables • The basic unit of meter is a foot. • Most common feet in English poetry: • Iamb  / • Trochee /  • Anapest  / • Dactyl /  • Spondee / / • Pyrrhic 

16. Metrical Lines • One footmonometer • Two feetdimeter • Three feettrimeter • Four feettetrameter • Five feetpentameter • Six feet hexameter • Seven feetheptameter • Eight feetoctameter

17. Stanzas • 2 line stanzas: couplets • 3 line stanzas: • tercets • triplets:aaa bbb ccc ddd • terza rima:aba bcb cdc ded • 4 line stanzas: quatrains • 5 line stanzas: quintets • 6 line stanzas: sestets • 7 line stanzas: septets • 8 line stanzas: octaves

18. COUPLETS The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens William Carlos Williams

19. 5 line nonsense poem First line ends in proper name of place or person Rhyme: aabba Meter: 1st, 2nd and 5th lines have 3 stressed beats 3rd and 4th lines have 2 stressed beats Gervaise There WAS a young BELLE of old NATCHez Whose GARments were ALways in PATCHez When COMment aROSE On the STATE of her CLOTHES She DRAWLED, When Ah ITCHez, Ah SCRATCHez! Ogden Nash There WAS a young WOman named PLUNnery Who reJOICED in the PRACtice of GUNnery Till one DAY unobSERvant She BLEW up a SERvant And was FORCED to reTIRE to a NUNnery. Edward Gorey Limerick

20. Ballad • English • Narrative • 4 line stanzas • Meter: Common Meter • iambic tetrameter (4-stress lines) alternating with • iambic trimeter (3 stress lines) • Rhyme • abab or • abcb • Refrains: exact or incremental repetition

21. Types of Ballads • Traditional • Anonymous • Folk • Broadside • Propaganda • Social Protest • Literary • Romantic poets

22. Ballad Conventions • Conversational language -- dialect • Dialogue • Traditional motifs: • Problematic love affairs • Supernatural seducers • Death • Raids and battles • Murders • Hauntings • Shipwrecks • Political protest • Comical situations

23. Traditional Ballad“Sir Patrick Spence” 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! 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.

24. ‘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.

25. BROADSIDE BALLADDudley Randall “Ballad of Birmingham” (1969) (On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) "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." 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?"

26. 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 singWelcome Proud Lady.’ Literary BalladSir Walter Scott, “Proud Maisie”

27. Sonnet • Italian origin • Lyric • 14 lines • Iambic pentameter

28. Italian or Petrarchan Stanzas: Octave -- presents problem Sestet -- resolution or meditation upon problem Rhyme: Octave -- abbaabba Sestet-- cdecdeorcdccdcor cddcdd orvariation English or Shakespearean Stanzas: 3Quatrains-- present similar images Heroic Couplet-- pardoxical resolution Rhyme: Quatrains -- abab cdcd efef Couplet --gg SONNETS

29. 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

30. 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.

31. Villanelle • French origin • Originated with round dance • Stanzas and Rhyme • 5 tercets: aba aba aba aba aba • 1 quatrain: abaa • Line Repetition • 1, 6, 12, 18 • 3, 9, 15, 19

32. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is bornagain.(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

33. Sestina • French origin • Stanzas: • 6sestets • 1tercet: anenvoi • Repetition and linking oftalons: • a/b/c/d/e/f • f/a/e/b/d/c • c/f/d/a/b/e • e/c/b/f/a/d • d/e/a/c/f/b • b/d/f/e/c/a • ba/dc/fe • Atmosphereranges from cozy to claustrophobic

34. "Sestina d'Inverno" by Anthony Hecht Was blessed heaven once, more than an islandThe grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.In that kind climate the mere thought of snowWas 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 makingDo than some wistful reverie of an island,Especially now when hope lies with the RochesterGas and Electric Co., which doesn't mindSuch profitable weather, while the nativesSink, 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 mindHolds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester. No island fantasy survives Rochester,Where to the natives destiny is snowThat 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 nativesOf this grey, sunless city of RochesterHave sown whole mines of salt about their land(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snowComes 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 nativesBlend coriander, cayenne, mint in makingRoasts that would gladden the Earl of RochesterWith sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.It might be well to remember that an island

36. 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. 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. Nani by Alberto Rios