Yesterday for Verseday #3, Gabrielle Prendergast highlighted the poetic forms that she used when she wrote her forthcoming verse novel, AUDACIOUS.It got my attention because I LOVE using forms when I write poetry, and I used many forms in my own forthcoming novel in verse.
One of the best surprises of using poetry forms in my work was that it gave me an opportunity to intensely study poetry, to understand poetry’s fundamentals, and to even discuss some of those basics in a section of end matter. It’s an example of how my writing ended up educating me.
After months of diving the depths of the ocean that is poetry, I came away with this thought: Any poetry form that has ever existed would not be if it weren’t for rhyme, rhythm, stanzas, and/or poetry techniques. (Maybe this is common knowledge among poets, but for me, it was my poetry eureka moment.) I think that every poem – from the simplest nursery rhyme to the most complex Shakespearean play, owes its existence to some combination of these four humble poetry basics. Even free verse (which isn’t really free) has evolved from these poetry fundamentals.
Stated another way: Writing in verse without using different combinations of these basics would be like an artist trying to paint without red, blue, yellow, or black & white. What does that leave? Nothing. As I understand color, every shade is an outgrowth of these primary colors, and black & white create tonal differences. The same holds true for poetry - without rhyme, rhythm, stanzas, and poetry techniques, poets have nothing – no way to make poetry. (Not even free verse, which, remember – if it is truly free verse poetry – is not free.) With these essentials, though, poets have a palette that allows every poetic color available in order to create the richest, most diverse poetry paintings in any form they care to follow or can imagine.
What's on your poet's palette these days? A big dollop of rhythm and rhyme? A bold dash of stanzas and techniques? A touch of free verse? Which basics are you using to paint your amazing poetry?
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Poetry Friday is at Violet Nesdoly's
Verse Day is at Gabrielle’s versenovels.com
1/18/2013