Unit 2.4.

Poetic form1

VERSE FORMS

Rhythm and metre combine in different ways to create verse forms. “Verse form”
is a general category which includes the combination of the length of the poem,
its divisions into sections, its rhyme scheme and its metre. A sonnet, for example,
has fourteen lines and it rhymes in one of a number of patterns, as we have seen.

Some verse forms have regular patterns of lines, rhymes and stanzas and have
special names (e.g. a sonnet has 14 lines and a specific rhyme scheme). Some
verse forms have regular patterns of lines, rhymes and stanzas but do not have
special names (poets create those forms). Some poems do not rhyme and do not
have regular patterns of lines, but they still have form.

Subject matter may also contribute to how poems are understood to belong to
certain genres. Poems in the genre of elegy, for example, commemorate a death,
and pastoral poetry is usually concerned with the idyllic life of shepherds, nature
or rural life.

Other forms are identifiable by elements both of structure and of subject matter.
An epic, like John Milton’s Paradise Lost (17th c), has to be long and about an
important subject or event.

Therefore, poems come in many different shapes. Sometimes poets conform to

traditional patterns, sometimes they prefer to create their own poetic forms. We
may distinguish two different kinds of poems:

1. Fixed form poetry: the poem follows an already established design, a

prescribed model, e.g. a sonnet. Of course writers may introduce
variations in the traditional form to create an innovative effect.

2. Open form poetry (or free verse): the poem does not conform to
established patterns of metre, rhyme and stanza. This kind of poetry
creates its own ordering principles through the careful arrangement of
words and phrases in line lengths that embody rhythms appropriate to the
meaning.

Open and fixed forms represent different poetic styles, but they are identical in
the sense that both use language in concentrated ways to convey meanings,
experiences, emotions and effects.

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Adapted from Michael Meyer, Poetry: An Introduction (6th edition). Boston and New York:
Bedford/St Martin’s, 2010.

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FIXED FORM POETRY

It is useful to acquire some familiarity with the most frequently used fixed forms
of poetry, as this helps to better understand how poems work.

The shape of a fixed form is often determined by the way in which the lines are
organised into stanzas. A stanza consists of a grouping of lines, set off by a space,
that usually has a set pattern of metre and rhyme. This pattern is ordinarily
repeated in other stanzas throughout the poem. What is usual is not obligatory,
however; some poems may use a different pattern for each stanza, somewhat like
paragraphs in prose.

Traditionally stanzas share a common rhyme scheme, the pattern of end rhymes.
We can map out rhyme schemes by noting patterns of rhyme with (lowercase)
letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second becomes b, the third c,
and so on. Using this system, we can describe the rhyme scheme of a given poem
like this: aabb, ccdd, eeff.

Poets often create their own stanzaic patterns; hence there is an infinite number
of kinds of stanzas. One way of talking about stanzaic forms is to describe a given
stanza by how many lines it contains.

Stanzaic forms

Couplet: it consists of two lines that usually rhyme and have the same metre;
couplets are frequently not separated from each other by space on the page. A
heroic couplet consists of rhymed iambic pentameters, as in Pope’s An Essay on
Criticism:

But most by numbers judge a poet’s song;

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;

The tercet is a three-line stanza:

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.)
“Mad Girl’s Love Song” (Sylvia Plath)

When all three lines rhyme they are called a triplet:

We put it on each row,

Before we even sow,
It makes our garden grow.

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Terza rima is an interlocking three-line rhyme schem: aba, bcb, cdc, ded, and so on.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
“Acquainted with the night” (Robert Frost)

The quatrain is a four-line stanza, the most common stanzaic form in the
English language. It can have various meters and rhyme schemes (if any). The
most common rhyme schemes are aabb, abba (enclosing rhyme) abab (cross-
rhyme), aaba, and abcb. The last pattern is known as ballad stanza, as found in
Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

All in a hot and copper sky

The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

The sestet is a six-line stanza which occurs in Petrachan sonnets (see below),
where it usually consists of two tercets:

The sestet is also a narrative and lyric stanza, often in a quatrain + couplet form,
abab-cc, where the quatrain narrates and the couplet summarises or comments:

I’ll remember each kind word you’ve uttered,

I won’t forget the nice things that you’ve done,
And even when my life is hectic, cluttered
My memories of you will still live on.
You’ll be with me no matter where I go,
That’s something that I thought that you should know.
“I Won’t Forget” (Maryse Achong)

The rhyme-royal is the principal seven-line stanza, rhyming ababbcc. It was

famously used by Chaucer in his narrative poem Troilus and Criseyde:

Now this has long proved true, and proves so still.

It is a thing that everybody knows;
None, we are told, has greater wit or skill
Than they whom love most powerfully throws;
The strongest men are overcome, and those
Most notable and highest in degree;
This was and is and yet again shall be.

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Ottava rima is the main eight-line stanza. It rhymes abababcc, which naturally
breaks down into a cross-rhymed sestet and a couplet (ababab-cc). It is the
stanza of Byron’s Don Juan, and is now often thought of as comic:

I now mean to be serious; — it is time,

Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious;
A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,
Although, when long, a little apt to weary us;
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn,
As an old temple dwindled to a column.
Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 1 (Lord Byron)

There are a number of longer stanzaic forms, but knowing these three most basic
patterns (couplet, tercet and quatrain) should prove helpful to you in talking
about the form of a great many poems.

In addition to stanzaic forms, there are fixed forms that characterise entire
poems. Let’s revise a few of them.

Some fixed forms

Sonnet
The sonnet has been a very popular literary form in English since the 16th
century, when it was adopted from the Italian sonnetto, meaning ‘little song’. A
sonnet consists of 14 lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. Because the
sonnet has been such a favourite form, writers have experimented with many
variations on its essential structure. Nevertheless, there are two basic types of
sonnets: the Italian and the English.

The Italian sonnet (also known as the Petrarchan sonnet, from the 14th-
century Italian poet Petrarch) is divided into two parts. The first 8 lines (the
octave) typically rhyme abbaabba. The final 6 lines (the sestet) may vary:
common patterns are cdecde, cdcdcd and cdccdc. Very often the octave presents
a situation, attitude or problem that the sestet comments upon or resolves. Very
often (though not always) there is a change of tone or meaning between the
octave and the sestet, and this is sometimes called by its original Italian name,
the ‘volta’ (meaning ‘turn’).

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 Sonnet (Thomas Wyatt)

Divers doth use, as I have heard and know,

When that to change their ladies do begin,
To mourn and wail, and never for to lin,
Hoping thereby to pease their painful woe.
And some there be, that when it chanceth so
That women change and hate where love hath been,
They call them false and think with words to win
The hearts of them which otherwhere doth grow.
But as for me, though that by chance indeed (volta)
Change hath outworn the favor that I had,
I will not wail, lament, nor yet be sad,
Nor call her false that falsely did me feed,
But let it pass, and think it is of kind
That often change doth please a woman's mind.

The English sonnet, also known as Shakespearean sonnet or Elizabethan

sonnet, was first experimented with by Thomas Wyatt. It is organised into 3
quatrains and a couplet, which typically rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. English
sonnets, because of their four-part organisation, also have more flexibility about
where thematic breaks can occur. Frequently, however, the most pronounced
break or turn comes with the concluding couplet.

Sonnet 144 (William Shakespeare)

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride;
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

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The Spenserian sonnet is a variant of the English sonnet. It keeps the 3
quatrains + 1 couplet structure but adds a rhyme-link between the quatrains:
abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Villanelle
The villanelle is a fixed form consisting of nineteen lines of any length divided
into six stanzas: five tercets and a concluding quatrain. The first and third lines of
the initial tercet rhyme; these rhymes are repeated in each subsequent tercet
(aba) and in the final two lines of the quatrain (abaa). Moreover, line 1 appears in
its entirety as lines 6, 12 and 18, while line 3 appears as lines 9, 15 and 19. This
poetic form requires much skill on the part of the poet to avoid monotony.

Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas)

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Sestina
Although the sestina usually does not rhyme, it is a very demanding fixed form. A
sestina consists of thirty-nines lines of any length divided into six six-line stanzas
and a three-line concluding stanza called an envoy. The difficulty is in repeating
the six words at the ends of the first stanza’s lines at the ends of the lines in the
other five six-line stanzas as well. Those words must also appear in the final three

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 lines, where they often resonate important themes. The sestina originated in the
Middle Ages, but contemporary poets continue to find it a fascinating and
challenging form.

Sestina (Elizabeth Bishop)

September rain falls on the house. It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
In the failing light, the old grandmother I know what I know, says the almanac.
sits in the kitchen with the child With crayons the child draws a rigid house
beside the Little Marvel Stove, and a winding pathway. Then the child
reading the jokes from the almanac, puts in a man with buttons like tears
laughing and talking to hide her tears. and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears But secretly, while the grandmother
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house busies herself about the stove,
were both foretold by the almanac, the little moons fall down like tears
but only known to a grandmother. from between the pages of the almanac
The iron kettle sings on the stove. into the flower bed the child
She cuts some bread and says to the child, has carefully placed in the front of the house.

It's time for tea now; but the child Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
dance like mad on the hot black stove, and the child draws another inscrutable house.
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac

hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

Epigram
An epigram is a brief, pointed and witty poem. Although most rhyme and often
are written in couplets, epigrams take no prescribed form. Instead, they are
typically polished bits of compressed irony, satire or paradox. The first example,
by Coleridge, is a self-defining epigram:

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole;

Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
(S.T. Coleridge)

I wish I could drink like a lady;

I can take one or two at the most:
Three and I’m under the table,
Four and I’m under the host.
(Dorothy Parker)
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Limerick
The limerick is always light and humorous. Its usual form consists of five
predominantly anapestic lines rhyming aabba; lines 1, 2 and 5 contain three feet
(trimeters), while lines 3 and 4 contain two (dimeters). They range in subject
matter from the simply innocent and silly to the satiric or obscene. The sexual
humour helps explain why so many limericks are written anonymously.

There was a young lady of Norway,

Who hung from her toes in a doorway;
She said to her beau:
‘Come over here, Joe,
I think I’ve discovered one more way!’

Haiku
Borrowed from the Japanese, the haiku is usually described as consisting of 17
syllables organised into 3 unrhymed lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Owing to
language difference, however, English translations of haiku are often only
approximated. In English it generally consists of three lines, each a separate
phrase, and has a limited number of syllables. These poems typically present an
intense emotion or vivid image of nature which, in the Japanese, are also
designed to lead to a spiritual insight.

The petals fall in the fountain,

The orange-colored rose leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
“Ts’ai Chi’h” (Ezra Pound, 1914)

Elegy
An elegy in classical Greek and Roman literature was written in alternating
hexameter and pentameter lines. Since the 17th century, however, the term elegy
has been used to describe a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is
dead. The word is also used to refer to a serious meditative poem produced to
express the speaker’s melancholy thoughts. Elegies no longer conform to a fixed
pattern of lines and stanzas, but their characteristic subject is related to death
and their tone is mournfully contemplative.

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“Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead” (Andrew Hudgins)

One day I’ll lift the telephone

and be told my father’s dead. He’s ready.
In the sureness of his faith, he talks
about the world beyond this world
as though his reservations have
been made. I think he wants to go,
a little bit—a new desire
to travel building up, an itch
to see fresh worlds. Or older ones.
He thinks that when I follow him
He’ll wrap me in his arms and laugh,
the way he did when I arrived
on earth. I do not think he’s right.
He’s ready. I am not. I can’t
just say good-bye as cheerfully
as if he were embarking on a trip
to make my later trip go well.
I see myself on deck, convinced
his ship’s gone down, while he’s convinced
I’ll see him standing on the dock
and waving, shouting, Welcome back.

Ode
An ode is characterised by a serious topic and formal tone, but there is no
prescribed formal pattern. In some odes the pattern of each stanza is repeated
throughout, while in others each stanza introduces a new pattern. Odes are
lengthy lyrics that often include lofty emotions conveyed by a dignified style.
Typical topics include truth, art, freedom, justice and the meaning of life.
Frequently such lyrics tend to be more public than private, and their speakers
often use apostrophe.

This is the first of the five stanzas of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind,
written in terza rima. You can read the rest of the poem here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45134/ode-to-the-west-wind

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 I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

Picture poem
By arranging lines into particular shapes, poets can sometimes organise
typography into picture poems of what they describe.
Notice how the shape of each of the following poems serves to enhace the
meaning:

A
TALL
LONELY
OAK TREE
WINDS HOWL
LEAVES SHAKE
ACORNS CLATTER
D
O
W
N
TO THE DRY GROUND

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OPEN FORM POETRY

Many poems, especially those written in the 20th century, are composed of lines
that cannot be scanned for a fixed or predominant metre. Moreover, very often
these poems do not rhyme. Known as free verse (from the French vers libre),
such lines can derive their rhythmic qualities from the repetition of words,
phrases, or grammatical structures; the arrangement of words on the printed
page, or some other means. In recent years the term open form has been used in
place of free verse to avoid the erroneous suggestion that this kind of poetry lacks
all discipline and shape.

from The Waste Land (T.S. Eliot)

I think we are in rats' alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.
'What it that noise?'
The wind under the door.
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'
Nothing again nothing.
'Do
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
'Nothing?'
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -
It's so elegant
So intelligent
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
'What shall we ever do?'
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

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