How Do You Choose a Poetic Form?

For a several months now I've been detailing various poetic forms to a couple of writing groups, and assisted in their attempts to master each form. So far I've covered about thirty-five different classic and invented forms, from haiku and sonnets to the cleave and standard Habbie. I've even invented my own form, the quintana. My next "lesson" will be the lento, invented by poet Lencio Rodrigues, which uses four-line stanzas and rhymes at the beginning and end of each line.

In putting together my fourth book of poetry and photography, I counted twenty-one diverse forms, besides poems comprising of standard quatrains and triplets without utilizing any specific named formats. My third book had a similar number, though I've used a different selection of forms in each of my books. Yes, I almost always include some of the classics, such as English and Italian sonnets, villanelles, Rondeaus, haiku and tanka. From there, though, there's no telling what might make it inside.

So, my readers, students, friends and family who follow my poetry often ask, "You know so many forms, how do you choose one?" My answer is always, "It depends." Truthfully, form, meter and rhyme schemes all play a part in the feel of a poem.

Sometimes I decide I haven't written with a certain form for a while, or need to create an example for an article. I am an "ekphrastic" poet, meaning I derive inspiration from a visual art, namely my photographs, so I start looking through my photos to find something whose inspiration somewhat matches the feel of the form on which I've pre-decided.

Sometimes it's the opposite- I am already inspired and look through the various formats at my fingertips until, hopefully, I find the form that closely fits. Occasionally that means looking up new forms I've yet to try, though that number is shrinking. If I have a lot to say, or am telling a story, I'm not going to select haiku, a sijo or another very short form. If it is serious or deep, I might not want to pick a limerick style or Dr. Seuss-like rhyming format. I've recently decided to write a new sestina, the most challenging form I've attempted, and I've yet to find an appropriate subject or theme. In time, that will happen.

Forms can be based on a wide variety of patterns (or non-patterns), such as stanza and line counts, syllable counts, meter, rhyming scheme, theme and a "turn" or poignant finish. The familiar haiku format of five, then seven, then five syllables in its three lines defies meter and rhyme. It requires a theme of nature or the seasons and may include a "cutting word," which cuts the stream of thought during reading for any one of a variety of purposes. An English sonnet, on the other hand, is fourteen lines, typically in three quatrains and a couplet, which uses classic meter and a strict rhyming pattern. A sonnet may employ an unexpected turn, called a "volta," that may change the feel or even the theme of the poem, and the couplet often serves to sum up the subject or purpose of the poem in two lines.

One can only master these forms by employing them, both with successes and failures guiding the education process. To steal a quote often used by Robert Keim, the inventor of the blitz poem, poet Theodore Roethke once said, "Sometimes an apparent constraint can serve to free the imagination." To be confined by a stringent format forces a writer to think outside of their normal vocabulary, past cliché or colloquialism, and in so doing, may find passion or poignancy where it may otherwise have been lacking. Often the difficulty is in employing a format that guides the reader to your point without their noticing, that flows from the lips without struggle and in the case of rhyming work, that they are as natural in speech as any conversation would be. If you accomplish these things with your poem, you have indeed mastered the form.