Form Eng205w: Cruising the difficult Instructor: aaron goldsman 9 September 2015

What is form Form refers to the genre or type of a given poem. When a poem is written in a certain form, it follows its structure. This can include the number of lines, a particular meter, kinds and arrangements of rhyme, and even a theme or logical sequence.

Why study form?

Why study form? “We can all surely admit without sacrificing any cherished sense of our bold modernity and iconoclastic originality that a painter is in a better position to ignore the ‘rules’ of composition or perspective if he knows exactly what those rules are. Just because poems are made of our common currency, words, it does not mean that poets should be denied a like grounding and knowledge.” (Fry 173)

Forms in fry Closed forms: The villanelle The sestina The Pantoum The Ballade “Exotic” forms: Haiku Senryu Tanka Ghazal Luc Bat Tanaga

The villanelle A complex closed form that is easier to recognize than to describe. In Fry’s words, “it’s a pastoral Italian form from the sixteenth century where the first line of the first stanza is used as a refrain to end the second and fourth stanzas and the last line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third, fifth and sixth” (222). Yikes. 1 2 3 4 5 6 A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2

The villanelle “Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave 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. A1 b A2 a

The villanelle “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. A1 b A2 a

The sonnet A fourteen line poem invented in 13th-century Rome and first made popular by Petrarch. The Petrarchan Sonnet, named after its inventor, is set up in two parts: The Octave, the first eight lines, which rhyme abba-abba The Sestet, the last six lines, which rhyme cdecde (or cddccd or cdccdc)

The sonnet More important than the particular structure is the logical flow of the poem, which, as Fry points out, tends to follow a dialectical pattern, or more colloquially, a kind of argument the poet is having with him- or herself. A key feature of this logical structure is what is called the volta, the latin word for “turn.” Here is where the poet’s thought “turns” on itself, the poem’s crisis coming to a resolution.

The sonnet “The World is Too Much with Us,” by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. — Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The sonnet “The World is Too Much with Us,” by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. — Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. Volta!

The sonnet The Shakespearean Sonnet follows a slightly different structure, better tuned to the rhyming capacities of English. It features 3 four-line stanzas (called quatrains) in cross- rhyme, followed by a rhyming couplet. So, the rhyme scheme can be written: abab cdcd efef gg.

The sonnet Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 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 dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; 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.

The sonnet Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Next class Langston Hughes, “Jazz as Communication”*, “The Weary Blues,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “Song for a Dark Girl” Richard Wright, from Haiku: This Other World Kevin Young, Odes* WEEKLY BLOGGING BEGINS