Help Me! I'm Poetry Challenged!

I don't know much about poetry. I have been writing prose since 1977 and music lyrics for just as long. But every time I have had a class or been in a discussion with writer friends, I just seem to be "poetry challenged."

I never really contemplated the whole of poetry. Nor did I realize, until one time I decided to delve into it, that there is a huge catalogue to poetry, There are terms, of course, such as "cinquain" and "iambic pentameter." As far as my dull poem-wit can fathom, the latter is where a line of poetry has five sets of up and down speech. The first syllable is unstressed, the second is stressed. The third syllable is unstressed, the fourth is stressed. And it goes on from there.

But there are also scores of different types of poetry as well. For example, most of us have heard of the Haiku and the Epic. But have you ever heard of the Tanka? This is a Japanese poem that consists of 31 syllables, broken down by lines as five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, seven and seven. Or could you possibly be familiar with the Terza Rima? No, you say? Well, Dante was credited with creating it (Divine Comedy), and it was used by the likes of Chaucer (Complaint to His Lady), Frost (Acquainted With The Night) and Shelley (Ode To The West Wind). I can't even go into what constitutes a Terza Rima without my mind going into some Escher spin. Something about interlocking rhymes in iambic tercets. (Groan!)

All these terms and forms and variations and so forth can make a person go a bit loony. So how is it that there are literally dozens (okay, maybe a bit more than that) of poets running around with very little formal training? Don't they know that if they are going to write poetry, they need to spend years and years in classes and learn all kinds of different ways to write out their art?

I mean, how can they determine if what they write is any good? If they don't know the rules, how can they abide by them? How can they possibly have an intelligent discussion about the terms and forms and tercets and epithalamium and all the other geegaws that surround the world of poetry critiques?

But really, I wonder to myself (a sure sign that I am either crazy or a writer), did Chaucer know the specific technical aspects of what he was doing? Did Dante sit there and say "okay, now how many syllables was that?"

Maybe poetry is not about this. Maybe it is not about the technical aspect of the ratio between up and down, stressed and unstressed, rhyming and non-rhyming. Maybe it is not about how well one can discuss a poem or critique one. Maybe it is about the art.

Hmmmmm, maybe poetry is about if you like it or not. It just might be about how the poem makes us feel or think or react. Could it be that poetry is about reaching out and inside another human being, and laying the poet's gentle finger on some pulse or nerve? Could it be about getting a reaction? Or maybe it is just about the personal expression of the poet, and the rest of the world be damned.

I may be poetry challenged, and I may not be able to have deep discussions on the merit of a particular poem or poet. But when it comes to poetry, I guess I just know what I like. When I read a poem, if it makes that deep down inside connection and makes me want to laugh or cry or think or just write, than I like it.

Well, just to be perverse, I decided (after losing my mind spinning through books and websites while researching poetry) to make up my own form of poem. I used this format when I wrote Ohio Barn. You are more than welcome to use it yourself, or critique it and tell me all the things I did wrong. (Laugh)

You start out with eight lines as an exposition of the topic at hand. Lines one, two, three, five, six and seven all have nine syllables. Lines four and eight have seven and the last word rhymes. In each set of four lines, you have action, description, action and the rhyming word. (The sample layout below may be a better explanation.)

The second set of eight lines is for the introspection of the topic. Gaining some sort of insight into yourself, the subject or the world in general. Again the action, description, action, rhyme sequence is observed.

The final set of eight lines is for the conclusion of the poem. Be it a revelation that came from the introspection or just a moving on, this is where it goes. Again the sequence is observed.

Below is how you would lay it out. Enjoy. Or don't.

Exposition
9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word

9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word

Introspection
9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word

9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word

Conclusion
9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word

9 syllables - action
9 syllables - description
9 syllables - action
7 syllables - rhyming word