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Between the Words - A Poetry Tutorial
The true poem rests between the words."
Vanna Bonta
Introduction
What's This?
A tutorial - hell, checklist, even - on the basics of poetry. English poetry because that's all we know well, but some stuff is universal.
Point is, we're here to educate you on one of the most beautiful and challenging art forms we have.
Who Do You Think You Are?
Between the two of us and our various past and present selves, we've got some Staff in there, some old Fellows from the now retired Fellowship program, some old Helpers from the now retired Helper Initiative, some Members of the Month, some Featured Poets, some Featured Tutorial Writers, and so on. Apparently we're very important or whatever.
Kidding. I'm kidding. About being important or whatever, I mean, the rest is true.
Hello, I'm Grey. Variously known as The Meanest Senpai, Minor God of Wine, Poetry, and Ultraviolence, and stop that, stop that right now you've already been warned once. Also I studied poetry academically or whatever but I'm sure you're raring to tell me how you can't dissect or quantify art so all that expensive learning is meaningless in the face of your real emotion.
I'm Anomaly and I'm best known for making a fool of myself at random, writing stuff sometimes, and wielding a banhammer. I'm a Writing major at FAU, but as Grey already said, what does that prove?! Well, nothing, except that I've passion, dedication, and - most importantly - discipline for the subject. I've been smacked over the head with these rules more times than I care to recall, and a glance at my stuff here on RPN will reveal I work without form quite often, but believe me... It's worth it to know.
Anomaly-chan is so excited that Grey-senpai is letting her work on this with him!
-bows- Arigatou gozaimasu Grey-senpai!!
Don’t be such a fucking weeb Noms, Jesus.
;-;
For real, though, Anomaly’s poetry was featured in the February 2015 newsletter. She’s really very good. You should check it out.
AND GREY HAS A THREAD TOO, sheesh. At least as good as mine.
Why All These Rules, Man?
Context. It’s all about context. Various elements of poetry, regardless of their original intention, have come to be associated with certain time periods, movements, ideas, and emotions. The Petrarchan sonnet, for example, is considered the exemplar of courtly love poetry - chaste, Godfearing, mild. If I was to write a Petrarchan sonnet about a largely physical tryst in a supply closet, clearly I’d be trying to make some kind of statement. These are restrictions, yes, but they are also tools you can use to modify the meaning or context of your poem.
Proper use of poetic tools like meter, rhyme, and structure can allow you to do more with less. Every word counts; the more you can do with one the more impact you can have.
“But, Grey, what about X poem by Y poet that breaks Z rule?!”
Well, Anomaly, once you have a firm grasp of rules, you can start breaking them in interesting ways, to make specific statements.
Every rule in the book has a note-worthy exception, usually rather a lot of them really. This does not devalue the rules themselves. Said novelist Flannery O’Connor on the subject of writing: “You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.” Words to live by, folks.
Prosody - Meter & Rhyme
Look at Grey, breaking out the big words.
Prosody is also a thing in linguistics but this is not the place for that definition. Here, we’re talking about the way poetry is structured to sound and be spoken.
Meter
We’ll start with meter (or metre, if you’re a filthy European), because even if you choose not to rhyme you’re going to need something to make it sound right, something to give it the right pace and flow. You can also play some tricks with meaning, but we’ll save that for later.
We’ll stick with English poetry here and talk about some of the better-known, arguably simpler stuff. Like iambic pentameter~. Which doesn’t sound simple - but once you figure out what it means, it’s a breeze. There are also a great many ways to change it up… but let’s not confuse you too much just yet.
Look at you - finishing my sentences. Anyway, the iamb is a pairing of syllables - one unstressed, followed by a stressed. A stressed syllable is one on which emphasis is placed. (See what I did there?) The pentameter part means there are five of these to a line. Short/long syllables can also work.
Example- Ooh! Ooh! I got this!
St. Judas - James Wright
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Good call, Anomaly. Take a moment to read a few lines of that out loud, see if you can catch the da-DUM-da-DUM kinda rhythm the iambs produce. Good rule of thumb - start with the words with multiple syllables. Hoodlums. Where’s the stress there? Saying that aloud provides a backdrop for the rest of the line, since stress on monosyllabic words often varies by context. A lot of people have trouble with recognizing stress - really the only thing I can recommend for that is practice, practice, practice.
Y’all call me a-NOM-a-lee. Say that aloud. Now say a-nom-a-LEE. Weird, right? That’s because the stress goes on the nom part.
By the by, this is also an example of a sonnet - but of a more modern variety we won't be covering here.
There’s a wiki page on meter. You should consider checking it out, folks; it’s a good way to figure out where to start learning more, if nothing else. It has a number of metrical systems to offer and you might find one you like the look of.
Rhyme
You know what meter is now, so rhyme is a touch more secondary - or more accurately, I want you to think of it as secondary for now because trying to shoehorn in rhymes leads to poor word choice, loss of impact, muddled meaning, and it makes me cringe to try and read it.
We don’t want that, do we?
The most common rhymes are probably, and most easily expressed as, ABAB or ABBA. This probably most relevant where songs are concerned, but it can also do things like improve readability, affect tone, and emphasize certain words or themes. I suddenly suspect we’re going to have to do a follow-up talking about those and narrative devices because when you’ve come this far…
So, what does this look like, anyway? Anomaly has helpfully reminded me of an old favourite by a poet I much admire.
Fire and Ice - Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
And then beats me to pasting it. Good job.
This isn’t a rhyme scheme you might see frequently, per se, but it’s an incredibly easy one to identify. To great effect!
Very much so. ABAABCBCB is a bit of an odd one, not least that repetition of the ‘ire’ sound, but it gives the poem a great cadence, and if you read it aloud to yourself now - you can almost feel yourself slipping into the kind of mindset that thinks of it, right? Correcting your tone and delivery to fit? After the second use of ‘fire’ it becomes like an afterthought that then receives great consideration.
Frequently rhyme and meter are used in conjunction - see Rhythm below - but do keep in mind that rhyme can be used in less structured works just as effectively as any established form in order to emphasize connections woven in through the work. Want to strengthen that line of water-based imagery? Or draw attention to the dualism between two people’s actions? Specific examples, but you get the gist. Rhyme - amongst other things, of course - can be used to do that.
Fifteen-year-old Noms held a particular disdain for rhyme, you know - having fostered some sort of belief that it was a juvenile method. One look at that gem up there, or any number of well-known poems, however, quickly shows that this is not the case. That being said, Grey has already mentioned how poets can fall into poor word choice when sticking to a rhyme scheme.
It’s worth repeating. Rhyme can be a great ally, but don’t use it to “justify” your syntax or other poetic decisions; that’s when it becomes your downfall. Poor word choice is poor word choice is poor word choice, rhyming or not. If you’re having trouble making your rhyme sound natural, either roll up your sleeves and do some intensive editing or consider adapting the poem to work without a rhyme scheme.
Are we good here? I feel we’re good here. Moving on.
Rhythm
Rhythm is something of an application of meter and rhyme, and becomes especially important where spoken or slam poetry is concerned (although poetry should always sound right when recited; likewise, spoken poetry ideally looks good on a page as well). Oh, and don’t think we aren’t going to talk about hip-hop at some point.
-nodnod- The line between music and poetry gets blurry quite a lot, and while often the comparison is made in response to hashtag-deep lyrics, another huge contributing factor is rhythm. So what are we even talking about, anyway? I raise to you as an example Shake the Dust by Anis Mojgani. You’re going to need to listen closely - it’s subtle, but a spectacular example.
Let’s take a look at these two lines:
For the sweat that drips off of Mick Jagger’s singing lips,
For the shaking skirt on Tina Turner’s shaking hips...
These are also great examples of some elements of verse we’ll be discussing later, but that is, as I just said, for later. See if you can pick them out in retrospect…
So let’s look at the rhyme here - pretty clear, right? “Lips” and “hips.” And we’ve got “drips” in there too, some nice internal rhyme. Now let’s look at the meter - note that they have the same number of syllables. That’s not coincidence.
“But of course there’s more to rhythm than lines being kind of the same length and rhyming, right? We just finished talking about those things!”
Correct you are! To fulfill Grey’s prediction, I’m about to bring up hiphop. Most rap songs are spectacular examples of rhythm because the entire genre is about a good beat and internal rhyme being used to accentuate points - which is, essentially, rhythm. Artful pause, pleasing arrangement of sounds - you know the drill. You’ll notice I mentioned internal rhyme - that’s not at the end of every line, necessarily, but also within lines. These elements are in no way limited to music, and working them into your poetry can be incredibly impactful.
In the barest terms, what rhythm is is pattern. That’s why rhyme and meter are front and center when looking at rhythm - in most cases they’re all about pattern. (There is some leniency here for rhyme.) But let’s take another look at those two lines from Shake the Dust - are they in any preconceived meter? Certainly not. But look at the stresses:
For the SWEAT that
DRIPS off of Mick
JAGGer's
SINGing
LIPS,
For the SHAKing
SKIRT on Tina
TURNer’s
SHAKing
HIPS…
They’re exactly the same. And that, my friends, is rhythm - establishing something consistent in an auditory sense, particularly in the way things are stressed. As long as that happens, even rhyme and meter can fall to the wayside.
Neither Grey nor I have enough of a background in music or spoken word to go into much more detail on rhythm, but it’s the kind of thing you can hear easily, so I’m going to leave you with a three very different poems, all good examples. They’ll definitely give you a sense for how rhythm can be used to great effect in poetry.
I'd embed this one, but the poem doesn't start til later in the video, so here's a fancy link that takes you to the exact part we're interested in.
Good job, Anomaly. I don’t even have to add anything. ouo Hoo rah!
Verse
The particular elements of verse we’ll be discussing are also known as methods of “phonetic agreement” - which should tell you that we’re working with the way things sound here, more than syllables or the like. Keep the last section fresh in your mind though - some of our prosody will be making a reappearance…
Formally, verse can refer to a single line, or poetry as a whole (in the same ways we use prose for fiction). The arrangement after that is the stanza, in longer poems. There are a number of different verse constructions we’ll talk about a little further down, but for now, as Anomaly says, we’re going to focus on…
Onomatopoeia
Words which describe sounds while sounding like those sounds. You know, like meow/miaow/mew. Onomatopoeia varies regionally, dialectically… just look at how various languages represent a ticking clock, or a cat’s cry.
You might recall being told in elementary school to use onomatopoeia as your hook in the opening sentence of a paper. You might also recall later learning how silly this advice really is. There’s a grain of truth to it, though; great writing invokes the five senses, and onomatopoeia is hugely beneficial to ensnaring a reader’s sense of hearing. Be careful though - as you can probably imagine, it’s easy to overdo or miss the mark with… BANG! What?! That didn’t scare you?!
Consonance
Consonance can be thought of a half-rhyming, in a way. It’s about having similar or identical consonant sounds follow each other in quick succession (pitter patter, being an obvious one). This is great for tone, pacing, and rhythm. Sticking with pitter patter, for the moment - that implies haste, for one, and sounds a bit like something pittering and pattering (Callback to onomatopoeia!). Good for rain, good for tiny feet, a bit of a cliche so deploy it carefully if at all. Here it’s just an example.
Here’s another, an excerpt:
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
Robert Frost, Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening
[[appreciative nodding]]
The only other sound’s the sweep gives a nice weight to that line, and evokes that whisper of wind-blown snow. It’s a very atmospheric poem, for being about sneaking off to sleep with your neighbour’s daughter.
(It’s probably not about that but it makes me chuckle every time I remember being told so).
Assonance
Like consonance, but with vowels. It’s about those matching, or echoing vowel sounds repeated across a line or stanza. Here’s a favourite example of mine:
I’m as slim as a silver stiletto, lit
By a fat, waxing moon and a seance
Of candles dipped in oil of frankincense
Patience Agbabi, Transformatrix
[[APPRECIATIVE NODDING INTENSIFIES]]
See that? All the 'i's in the first line, the 'a's in the second. A short vowel sound followed by a long one. Matches the content neatly, sounds good and supports the rest of the poem. This also gives the poem a nice rhythmical structure, the tauter lines and longer ones complementing each other.
Alliteration
This one interacts strongly with meter. It’s about repeating a stressed syllable, usually a consonant, such as the classic ‘Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers’
Poe’s The Raven is packed with the stuff. Makes a nice stand-in for onomatopoeia when, for whatever reason, you can’t or won’t use it. An excerpt from aforementioned poem:
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
See the stressed syllables "em," "or," and "ra" in there? All over the place. There are some slight differences with each repetition, but still a strong resemblance throughout. Try reading aloud. Now, the same excerpt, but with stressed syllables bolded for you to see more clearly, and then we'll move on.
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
Metaphor
As this is probably the single most important part of poetry ever, I’ll let Grey do the honors of introducing it… by totally taking the first sentence.
‘It is traffic that cannot stop itself. It is the leaves dancing in the slipstream. It is the abandoned bathtub, harbouring unseen new life. Our love is like all of these; it is in the gentle death of the now, and its reclamation by the past.’ - Dan Pinchbeck, The Fields Were The Essence of the Song
A metaphor, in the unlikely event you don’t know already (ROOD), is, on the most basic level, a way of comparing two things by presenting them as the same. Often, in poetry, metaphor is extended and subtle; you’ll get “my heart is an apple” about as often as you’ll get a poem about an apple bruising and ripening, ending with the implication that the apple represents a heart. This can make metaphor hard to define in any concrete way - but there you have it.
Thank you, Anomaly - maybe we should re-credit this with ‘And Grey Helps too.’
Oh, pish posh. You only did nearly the entirety of Verse. Moving on…
Metaphor is a tricky beast, but vital. A poem without metaphor is someone baldly and bitterly ranting about something, usually. -nodnod- A severe case of juvenilia, if you will. Which is not to invalidate someone having a blatant rant, but it can take some effort to make that beautiful and you should strive to join the fragments with gold. A poem without metaphor is meat without seasoning - necessary protein (being the message) that absolutely nobody wants to eat - because it's boring. Here's a favourite example. (And now refer back to our discussion on the blurry line between poetry and music in the Rhythm section.)
Anyway, metaphor is really freeing. Think how quickly you’d run out of words if you stuck to the very literal points of your piece. “This bastard cheated on me and now I’m angry. The end.” That’s right. Whereas by using a metaphorical conceit - that is to say, establishing that what you’re talking about isn’t quite what the words on the page suggest - you have more room to express yourself, more space for imagery and emotion… generally the whole thing can be made more lovely, or cutting. Impactful.
Another thing this can do is give readers breathing space. When approaching difficult subject matter, the human instinct is to tune out. We get uncomfortable and remove ourselves from a situation intellectually. Not true for every individual, but the point stands. What metaphor does is lure a reader into this wrenching material, so to speak, by piquing their interest and, at first, masking what’s going on.
Of course, there’s always poetry which intends to make you uncomfortable. I shall repeat an earlier quote: “You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.” Flannery O’Connor, don’t forget now.
The entirety of Shelley’s Ozymandias is a great example, to my mind.
Ozymandius - Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Robert Montgomery favours the more direct ‘All palaces are temporary palaces’. Because neither man is talking about the statue, or the palaces really. They’re talking about time and mortality - ‘all our splendid monuments/ Lipstick traces on a cigarette’.
Another good example, from Maya Angelou (Gone, never forgotten), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Here's an excerpt.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
I think that one is pretty clear, and striking, which makes it a good example. If you were to literally talk about feelings of oppression and imprisonment, you’d struggle to provide such a compelling image in so few words.
“Okay, so now I know it’s important. How do I metaphor?”
To iterate what Grey has already said - metaphor is a tricky beast. There’s no set of standard sized tools out there for you in this respect. One of the reasons metaphor is such a keystone to poetry is that it is very much the brainchild of the poet. You need to craft your own. All we can show you is that which has been done before. And given that nearly every poem has a slew of metaphor in there… I don’t know where we’d even begin.
We’ll come back to that in closing, I suspect.
Forms
So after all that, what are some simple, specific forms you can emulate in your work? We’ve got a few here for you.
We’ll list ‘em below, and you can see what you think. Maybe link some examples.
Sonnet
There are two kinds of sonnet, in English - the Petrarchan (originally Italian) and the Shakespearean. Both are iambic pentameter’s stomping grounds.
The Vision - Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
Translated by Edmund Spenser
‘Being one day at my window all alone,
So manie strange things happened me to see,
As much as it grieveth me to thinke thereon.
At my right hand a hynde appear’d to mee,
So faire as mote the greatest god delite;
Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace.
Of which the one was blacke, the other white:
With deadly force so in their cruell race
They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,
That at the last, and in short time, I spide,
Under a rocke, where she alas, opprest,
Fell to the ground, and there untimely dide.
Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie
Oft makes me wayle so hard a desire.’
The Petrarchan is 14 lines long, divided into an octet (8 lines) and a sestet (7 lines), with a rhyme in the octet of abbaabba - more easily done in Italian, really - and the sestet is more flexible. Originally used for love poetry, the octet normally sets up a situation and the sestet addresses it. It’s been suggested to me Petrarch was veiling gnosticism in metaphor, and while compelling… well, consider the historical context of this form to be love poetry, and let that inform how you use it. To the left is an example from the man himself.
My Mistress’ Eyes - William Shakespeare
‘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.’
The Shakespearean is also 14 lines long, but this time divided into three quatrains, stanzas of four lines, followed by a couplet of two. Much like Petrarch’s, the quatrains establish a theme or situation, and the couplet resolves or at least responds to it. It should also be noted that commonly there is a turn after the second stanza, after which the third quatrain shifts perspectives, so to speak. Again - an example to the left. One picked by Grey, but I must express my intense approval, by the by.
Rhyme Royal
They Flee From Me - Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Iambic pentameter strikes again! With Chaucer being a prime exponent but not our example, this time. A rhyme royal stanza is composed of seven lines. Normally in the form a tercet (three lines) followed by two couplets (two lines), or a quatrain and tercet. Rhyme of a/b/a/b/b/c/c usually. Used in narrative poetry for flexibility, length, and you can just keep stacking them. Remarkably free of historical associations.
Haiku in English
You think Haiku is easy.
You are wrong.
The typical structure, based on the Japanese, is 17 syllables over three lines, arranged 5, 7, 5.
There should also be a references to nature or the season, appropriate to the location (if cherries grow near you, a mention of their blossoms indicates Spring, for example). They lack rhyme, and leave a lot to the imagination - often contrasting two ideas, or wistfully commenting on some otherwise trivial thing. One breath of insight, like revelation.
The important thing to remember with haiku, perhaps moreso than longer forms, is that every word counts. You can’t afford to waste words; everything must be chosen carefully because of the limited scope.
This one is more obvious than most, but I like it as an example:
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away
Richard Wright
Haiku, in English, have strong associations with the Cold War period if not the political tensions themselves, having gained significant popularity in the post-War U.S.A. Haiku are good stay sharp, make a joke, or go for succinct commentary - if a little indirect. I have little doubt @simj22 will appear in this thread to offer a disproportionately valuable pair of cents. Definitely check out his old thread, 5-7-5.
Pantoum (Anomaly's good at these. She gets this section.)
September Elegies - Randall Mann
in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi
There are those who suffer in plain sight,
there are those who suffer in private.
Nothing but secondhand details:
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.
There are those who suffer in private.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
He was found by his mother.
The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
he was found by his mother.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,"
the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
posted on his profile.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
The words turn and turn on themselves.
Posted on his profile,
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
There are those who suffer in plain sight
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Nothing but secondhand details.
Aw, shucks. Because of some color-coding I’m doing in this section, I’m going to write in black. But it’s all Anomaly - Grey’s kept his filthy paws off for once. (Kidding, kidding.)
Buckle up and get ready to be frustrated and mildly confused. Worth it, though, because what pantoums do is they allow you to thoroughly exhaust everything a phrase could mean by forcing you to play with context.
Pantoums do not have a rhyme scheme or meter, nor a particular number of lines - rather, they are an exercise in repetition. As such, they can be any length you want, as long as you follow a few basic rules… You will be writing in quatrains, stanzas of four. So, your first stanza will be ABCD, where each letter represents NOT the closing word, but the entire line.
In a pantoum, the first and third lines of each stanza are always the same as the second and fourth lines, respectively, of the one above it. So stanza 2 will look like BEDF. Don’t worry - there’ll be examples later.
So you write your first stanza, drop down to a new one - and then write the second line again. Your next line will be an original - and then you’ll write the fourth line again, followed by another original. As I said, there’ll be examples later.
You may continue this pattern as long as you please; the last stanza, however, has a special doo-da. Just as any other paragraph, it’s first and third lines are the same as the second and fourth lines of the stanza above it. However, the second line of the last stanza is the same as the third line of the first stanza, and the last line of the last stanza is the same as the first line of the first stanza, so it comes full circle. So let’s look at the poem from before, but this time color-coded and with an alphabetized scheme next to it so you can visualize it.
September Elegies - Randall Mann,
in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi
There are those who suffer in plain sight,
A
there are those who suffer in private.
B
Nothing but secondhand details:
C
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.
D
There are those who suffer in private.
B
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
E
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
D
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
F
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
E
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
G
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
F
He was found by his mother.
H
The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
G
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
I
he was found by his mother.
H
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,"
J
the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
I
posted on his profile.
K
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
J
The words turn and turn on themselves.
L
Posted on his profile,
K
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
M
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
L
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
N
Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
M
There are those who suffer in plain sight
C
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
N
Nothing but secondhand details.
A
Got that? That’s the basics of writing a pantoum. Definitely note the example I've provided above to the right - I'll be providing it below as well, so you can read it with the color coding to highlight the repetition. As for historical connotation - this form has been used to cover a wide variety of topics and is therefore mostly free of it; however, contemporary pantoums often deal with social issues.
Something to keep in mind: When you get good at following this order, you can start pushing the boundaries. See, each line does not need to be repeated exactly and may even be fairly different, as long as there is a very clear structural and/or metaphorical resemblance. Toying with this to effect meaning and impact is always a good idea, once you have a hold of the form.
Closing Thoughts
You’ll notice a lot this was composed of examples. The reason, linking back to metaphor and how I’d have to come back to it, is simple.
If you want to write anything, but most of all poetry, you must practice, and you must read. Read poets you love, read poets you hate, practice, look for forms you’ve never seen, read poetry you don’t ‘get’. Try everything. Practice. Read everything.
Formal study certainly helps, in my opinion, but just absorbing as much as you can will teach you a lot and the internet is right here in front of you. Use your words carefully, too - you can only employ so many, so they have to count.
Whatever else Stephen King may have written [SUSPICIOUS EYEBROW INTENSIFIES], he does have one quotable moment: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” He’s not wrong, and neither’s Grey. While I certainly hope this tutorial has been helpful, you’ll get nowhere if you don’t use all the information. Read a lot - and write a lot. Doesn’t have to be good every time.
Oh, and learn to accept criticism. You don’t improve by writing in a vacuum and insisting it’s good.
I can’t begin to tell you how refreshing it is when someone responds positively to criticism. We aren’t trying to invalidate your feelings, guys… (I am) (Shhhh!) Only to indicate ways in which you might be able to get them across more potently. There’re centuries and centuries of history and culture backing us up, here; hopefully by now we’ve proved we aren’t talking out our asses!!
I’m… not sure there’s much else to say. Got anything, Grey?
Pleasure working with you, Anomaly. And you, yes, you there - why aren’t you practicing yet?
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Between the Words - A Poetry Tutorial
The true poem rests between the words."
Vanna Bonta
Introduction
What's This?
A tutorial - hell, checklist, even - on the basics of poetry. English poetry because that's all we know well, but some stuff is universal.
Point is, we're here to educate you on one of the most beautiful and challenging art forms we have.
Who Do You Think You Are?
Between the two of us and our various past and present selves, we've got some Staff in there, some old Fellows from the now retired Fellowship program, some old Helpers from the now retired Helper Initiative, some Members of the Month, some Featured Poets, some Featured Tutorial Writers, and so on. Apparently we're very important or whatever.
Kidding. I'm kidding. About being important or whatever, I mean, the rest is true.
Hello, I'm Grey. Variously known as The Meanest Senpai, Minor God of Wine, Poetry, and Ultraviolence, and stop that, stop that right now you've already been warned once. Also I studied poetry academically or whatever but I'm sure you're raring to tell me how you can't dissect or quantify art so all that expensive learning is meaningless in the face of your real emotion.
I'm Anomaly and I'm best known for making a fool of myself at random, writing stuff sometimes, and wielding a banhammer. I'm a Writing major at FAU, but as Grey already said, what does that prove?! Well, nothing, except that I've passion, dedication, and - most importantly - discipline for the subject. I've been smacked over the head with these rules more times than I care to recall, and a glance at my stuff here on RPN will reveal I work without form quite often, but believe me... It's worth it to know.
Anomaly-chan is so excited that Grey-senpai is letting her work on this with him!
-bows- Arigatou gozaimasu Grey-senpai!!Don’t be such a fucking weeb Noms, Jesus.
;-;
For real, though, Anomaly’s poetry was featured in the February 2015 newsletter. She’s really very good. You should check it out.
AND GREY HAS A THREAD TOO, sheesh. At least as good as mine.
Why All These Rules, Man?
Context. It’s all about context. Various elements of poetry, regardless of their original intention, have come to be associated with certain time periods, movements, ideas, and emotions. The Petrarchan sonnet, for example, is considered the exemplar of courtly love poetry - chaste, Godfearing, mild. If I was to write a Petrarchan sonnet about a largely physical tryst in a supply closet, clearly I’d be trying to make some kind of statement. These are restrictions, yes, but they are also tools you can use to modify the meaning or context of your poem.
Proper use of poetic tools like meter, rhyme, and structure can allow you to do more with less. Every word counts; the more you can do with one the more impact you can have.
“But, Grey, what about X poem by Y poet that breaks Z rule?!”
Well, Anomaly, once you have a firm grasp of rules, you can start breaking them in interesting ways, to make specific statements.
Every rule in the book has a note-worthy exception, usually rather a lot of them really. This does not devalue the rules themselves. Said novelist Flannery O’Connor on the subject of writing: “You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.” Words to live by, folks.
Prosody - Meter & Rhyme
Look at Grey, breaking out the big words.
Prosody is also a thing in linguistics but this is not the place for that definition. Here, we’re talking about the way poetry is structured to sound and be spoken.
Meter
We’ll start with meter (or metre, if you’re a filthy European), because even if you choose not to rhyme you’re going to need something to make it sound right, something to give it the right pace and flow. You can also play some tricks with meaning, but we’ll save that for later.
We’ll stick with English poetry here and talk about some of the better-known, arguably simpler stuff. Like iambic pentameter~. Which doesn’t sound simple - but once you figure out what it means, it’s a breeze. There are also a great many ways to change it up… but let’s not confuse you too much just yet.
Look at you - finishing my sentences. Anyway, the iamb is a pairing of syllables - one unstressed, followed by a stressed. A stressed syllable is one on which emphasis is placed. (See what I did there?) The pentameter part means there are five of these to a line. Short/long syllables can also work.
Example- Ooh! Ooh! I got this!
St. Judas - James Wright
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Good call, Anomaly. Take a moment to read a few lines of that out loud, see if you can catch the da-DUM-da-DUM kinda rhythm the iambs produce. Good rule of thumb - start with the words with multiple syllables. Hoodlums. Where’s the stress there? Saying that aloud provides a backdrop for the rest of the line, since stress on monosyllabic words often varies by context. A lot of people have trouble with recognizing stress - really the only thing I can recommend for that is practice, practice, practice.
Y’all call me a-NOM-a-lee. Say that aloud. Now say a-nom-a-LEE. Weird, right? That’s because the stress goes on the nom part.
By the by, this is also an example of a sonnet - but of a more modern variety we won't be covering here.
There’s a wiki page on meter. You should consider checking it out, folks; it’s a good way to figure out where to start learning more, if nothing else. It has a number of metrical systems to offer and you might find one you like the look of.
Rhyme
You know what meter is now, so rhyme is a touch more secondary - or more accurately, I want you to think of it as secondary for now because trying to shoehorn in rhymes leads to poor word choice, loss of impact, muddled meaning, and it makes me cringe to try and read it.
We don’t want that, do we?
The most common rhymes are probably, and most easily expressed as, ABAB or ABBA. This probably most relevant where songs are concerned, but it can also do things like improve readability, affect tone, and emphasize certain words or themes. I suddenly suspect we’re going to have to do a follow-up talking about those and narrative devices because when you’ve come this far…
So, what does this look like, anyway? Anomaly has helpfully reminded me of an old favourite by a poet I much admire.
Fire and Ice - Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
And then beats me to pasting it. Good job.
This isn’t a rhyme scheme you might see frequently, per se, but it’s an incredibly easy one to identify. To great effect!
Very much so. ABAABCBCB is a bit of an odd one, not least that repetition of the ‘ire’ sound, but it gives the poem a great cadence, and if you read it aloud to yourself now - you can almost feel yourself slipping into the kind of mindset that thinks of it, right? Correcting your tone and delivery to fit? After the second use of ‘fire’ it becomes like an afterthought that then receives great consideration.
Frequently rhyme and meter are used in conjunction - see Rhythm below - but do keep in mind that rhyme can be used in less structured works just as effectively as any established form in order to emphasize connections woven in through the work. Want to strengthen that line of water-based imagery? Or draw attention to the dualism between two people’s actions? Specific examples, but you get the gist. Rhyme - amongst other things, of course - can be used to do that.
Fifteen-year-old Noms held a particular disdain for rhyme, you know - having fostered some sort of belief that it was a juvenile method. One look at that gem up there, or any number of well-known poems, however, quickly shows that this is not the case. That being said, Grey has already mentioned how poets can fall into poor word choice when sticking to a rhyme scheme.
It’s worth repeating. Rhyme can be a great ally, but don’t use it to “justify” your syntax or other poetic decisions; that’s when it becomes your downfall. Poor word choice is poor word choice is poor word choice, rhyming or not. If you’re having trouble making your rhyme sound natural, either roll up your sleeves and do some intensive editing or consider adapting the poem to work without a rhyme scheme.
Are we good here? I feel we’re good here. Moving on.
Rhythm
Rhythm is something of an application of meter and rhyme, and becomes especially important where spoken or slam poetry is concerned (although poetry should always sound right when recited; likewise, spoken poetry ideally looks good on a page as well). Oh, and don’t think we aren’t going to talk about hip-hop at some point.
-nodnod- The line between music and poetry gets blurry quite a lot, and while often the comparison is made in response to hashtag-deep lyrics, another huge contributing factor is rhythm. So what are we even talking about, anyway? I raise to you as an example Shake the Dust by Anis Mojgani. You’re going to need to listen closely - it’s subtle, but a spectacular example.
Let’s take a look at these two lines:
For the sweat that drips off of Mick Jagger’s singing lips,
For the shaking skirt on Tina Turner’s shaking hips...
These are also great examples of some elements of verse we’ll be discussing later, but that is, as I just said, for later. See if you can pick them out in retrospect…
So let’s look at the rhyme here - pretty clear, right? “Lips” and “hips.” And we’ve got “drips” in there too, some nice internal rhyme. Now let’s look at the meter - note that they have the same number of syllables. That’s not coincidence.
“But of course there’s more to rhythm than lines being kind of the same length and rhyming, right? We just finished talking about those things!”
Correct you are! To fulfill Grey’s prediction, I’m about to bring up hiphop. Most rap songs are spectacular examples of rhythm because the entire genre is about a good beat and internal rhyme being used to accentuate points - which is, essentially, rhythm. Artful pause, pleasing arrangement of sounds - you know the drill. You’ll notice I mentioned internal rhyme - that’s not at the end of every line, necessarily, but also within lines. These elements are in no way limited to music, and working them into your poetry can be incredibly impactful.
In the barest terms, what rhythm is is pattern. That’s why rhyme and meter are front and center when looking at rhythm - in most cases they’re all about pattern. (There is some leniency here for rhyme.) But let’s take another look at those two lines from Shake the Dust - are they in any preconceived meter? Certainly not. But look at the stresses:
For the SWEAT that
DRIPS off of Mick
JAGGer's
SINGing
LIPS,
For the SHAKing
SKIRT on Tina
TURNer’s
SHAKing
HIPS…
They’re exactly the same. And that, my friends, is rhythm - establishing something consistent in an auditory sense, particularly in the way things are stressed. As long as that happens, even rhyme and meter can fall to the wayside.
Neither Grey nor I have enough of a background in music or spoken word to go into much more detail on rhythm, but it’s the kind of thing you can hear easily, so I’m going to leave you with a three very different poems, all good examples. They’ll definitely give you a sense for how rhythm can be used to great effect in poetry.
I'd embed this one, but the poem doesn't start til later in the video, so here's a fancy link that takes you to the exact part we're interested in.
Good job, Anomaly. I don’t even have to add anything. ouo Hoo rah!
Verse
The particular elements of verse we’ll be discussing are also known as methods of “phonetic agreement” - which should tell you that we’re working with the way things sound here, more than syllables or the like. Keep the last section fresh in your mind though - some of our prosody will be making a reappearance…
Formally, verse can refer to a single line, or poetry as a whole (in the same ways we use prose for fiction). The arrangement after that is the stanza, in longer poems. There are a number of different verse constructions we’ll talk about a little further down, but for now, as Anomaly says, we’re going to focus on…
Onomatopoeia
Words which describe sounds while sounding like those sounds. You know, like meow/miaow/mew. Onomatopoeia varies regionally, dialectically… just look at how various languages represent a ticking clock, or a cat’s cry.
You might recall being told in elementary school to use onomatopoeia as your hook in the opening sentence of a paper. You might also recall later learning how silly this advice really is. There’s a grain of truth to it, though; great writing invokes the five senses, and onomatopoeia is hugely beneficial to ensnaring a reader’s sense of hearing. Be careful though - as you can probably imagine, it’s easy to overdo or miss the mark with… BANG! What?! That didn’t scare you?!
Consonance
Consonance can be thought of a half-rhyming, in a way. It’s about having similar or identical consonant sounds follow each other in quick succession (pitter patter, being an obvious one). This is great for tone, pacing, and rhythm. Sticking with pitter patter, for the moment - that implies haste, for one, and sounds a bit like something pittering and pattering (Callback to onomatopoeia!). Good for rain, good for tiny feet, a bit of a cliche so deploy it carefully if at all. Here it’s just an example.
Here’s another, an excerpt:
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
Robert Frost, Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening
[[appreciative nodding]]
The only other sound’s the sweep gives a nice weight to that line, and evokes that whisper of wind-blown snow. It’s a very atmospheric poem, for being about sneaking off to sleep with your neighbour’s daughter.
(It’s probably not about that but it makes me chuckle every time I remember being told so).
Assonance
Like consonance, but with vowels. It’s about those matching, or echoing vowel sounds repeated across a line or stanza. Here’s a favourite example of mine:
I’m as slim as a silver stiletto, lit
By a fat, waxing moon and a seance
Of candles dipped in oil of frankincense
Patience Agbabi, Transformatrix
[[APPRECIATIVE NODDING INTENSIFIES]]
See that? All the 'i's in the first line, the 'a's in the second. A short vowel sound followed by a long one. Matches the content neatly, sounds good and supports the rest of the poem. This also gives the poem a nice rhythmical structure, the tauter lines and longer ones complementing each other.
Alliteration
This one interacts strongly with meter. It’s about repeating a stressed syllable, usually a consonant, such as the classic ‘Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers’
Poe’s The Raven is packed with the stuff. Makes a nice stand-in for onomatopoeia when, for whatever reason, you can’t or won’t use it. An excerpt from aforementioned poem:
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
See the stressed syllables "em," "or," and "ra" in there? All over the place. There are some slight differences with each repetition, but still a strong resemblance throughout. Try reading aloud. Now, the same excerpt, but with stressed syllables bolded for you to see more clearly, and then we'll move on.
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
Metaphor
As this is probably the single most important part of poetry ever, I’ll let Grey do the honors of introducing it… by totally taking the first sentence.
‘It is traffic that cannot stop itself. It is the leaves dancing in the slipstream. It is the abandoned bathtub, harbouring unseen new life. Our love is like all of these; it is in the gentle death of the now, and its reclamation by the past.’ - Dan Pinchbeck, The Fields Were The Essence of the Song
A metaphor, in the unlikely event you don’t know already (ROOD), is, on the most basic level, a way of comparing two things by presenting them as the same. Often, in poetry, metaphor is extended and subtle; you’ll get “my heart is an apple” about as often as you’ll get a poem about an apple bruising and ripening, ending with the implication that the apple represents a heart. This can make metaphor hard to define in any concrete way - but there you have it.
Thank you, Anomaly - maybe we should re-credit this with ‘And Grey Helps too.’
Oh, pish posh. You only did nearly the entirety of Verse. Moving on…
Metaphor is a tricky beast, but vital. A poem without metaphor is someone baldly and bitterly ranting about something, usually. -nodnod- A severe case of juvenilia, if you will. Which is not to invalidate someone having a blatant rant, but it can take some effort to make that beautiful and you should strive to join the fragments with gold. A poem without metaphor is meat without seasoning - necessary protein (being the message) that absolutely nobody wants to eat - because it's boring. Here's a favourite example. (And now refer back to our discussion on the blurry line between poetry and music in the Rhythm section.)
Anyway, metaphor is really freeing. Think how quickly you’d run out of words if you stuck to the very literal points of your piece. “This bastard cheated on me and now I’m angry. The end.” That’s right. Whereas by using a metaphorical conceit - that is to say, establishing that what you’re talking about isn’t quite what the words on the page suggest - you have more room to express yourself, more space for imagery and emotion… generally the whole thing can be made more lovely, or cutting. Impactful.
Another thing this can do is give readers breathing space. When approaching difficult subject matter, the human instinct is to tune out. We get uncomfortable and remove ourselves from a situation intellectually. Not true for every individual, but the point stands. What metaphor does is lure a reader into this wrenching material, so to speak, by piquing their interest and, at first, masking what’s going on.
Of course, there’s always poetry which intends to make you uncomfortable. I shall repeat an earlier quote: “You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.” Flannery O’Connor, don’t forget now.
The entirety of Shelley’s Ozymandias is a great example, to my mind.
Ozymandius - Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Robert Montgomery favours the more direct ‘All palaces are temporary palaces’. Because neither man is talking about the statue, or the palaces really. They’re talking about time and mortality - ‘all our splendid monuments/ Lipstick traces on a cigarette’.
Another good example, from Maya Angelou (Gone, never forgotten), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Here's an excerpt.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
I think that one is pretty clear, and striking, which makes it a good example. If you were to literally talk about feelings of oppression and imprisonment, you’d struggle to provide such a compelling image in so few words.
“Okay, so now I know it’s important. How do I metaphor?”
To iterate what Grey has already said - metaphor is a tricky beast. There’s no set of standard sized tools out there for you in this respect. One of the reasons metaphor is such a keystone to poetry is that it is very much the brainchild of the poet. You need to craft your own. All we can show you is that which has been done before. And given that nearly every poem has a slew of metaphor in there… I don’t know where we’d even begin.
We’ll come back to that in closing, I suspect.
Forms
So after all that, what are some simple, specific forms you can emulate in your work? We’ve got a few here for you.
We’ll list ‘em below, and you can see what you think. Maybe link some examples.
Sonnet
There are two kinds of sonnet, in English - the Petrarchan (originally Italian) and the Shakespearean. Both are iambic pentameter’s stomping grounds.
The Vision - Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
Translated by Edmund Spenser
‘Being one day at my window all alone,
So manie strange things happened me to see,
As much as it grieveth me to thinke thereon.
At my right hand a hynde appear’d to mee,
So faire as mote the greatest god delite;
Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace.
Of which the one was blacke, the other white:
With deadly force so in their cruell race
They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,
That at the last, and in short time, I spide,
Under a rocke, where she alas, opprest,
Fell to the ground, and there untimely dide.
Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie
Oft makes me wayle so hard a desire.’
The Petrarchan is 14 lines long, divided into an octet (8 lines) and a sestet (7 lines), with a rhyme in the octet of abbaabba - more easily done in Italian, really - and the sestet is more flexible. Originally used for love poetry, the octet normally sets up a situation and the sestet addresses it. It’s been suggested to me Petrarch was veiling gnosticism in metaphor, and while compelling… well, consider the historical context of this form to be love poetry, and let that inform how you use it. To the left is an example from the man himself.
My Mistress’ Eyes - William Shakespeare
‘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.’
The Shakespearean is also 14 lines long, but this time divided into three quatrains, stanzas of four lines, followed by a couplet of two. Much like Petrarch’s, the quatrains establish a theme or situation, and the couplet resolves or at least responds to it. It should also be noted that commonly there is a turn after the second stanza, after which the third quatrain shifts perspectives, so to speak. Again - an example to the left. One picked by Grey, but I must express my intense approval, by the by.
Rhyme Royal
They Flee From Me - Sir Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Iambic pentameter strikes again! With Chaucer being a prime exponent but not our example, this time. A rhyme royal stanza is composed of seven lines. Normally in the form a tercet (three lines) followed by two couplets (two lines), or a quatrain and tercet. Rhyme of a/b/a/b/b/c/c usually. Used in narrative poetry for flexibility, length, and you can just keep stacking them. Remarkably free of historical associations.
Haiku in English
You think Haiku is easy.
You are wrong.
The typical structure, based on the Japanese, is 17 syllables over three lines, arranged 5, 7, 5.
There should also be a references to nature or the season, appropriate to the location (if cherries grow near you, a mention of their blossoms indicates Spring, for example). They lack rhyme, and leave a lot to the imagination - often contrasting two ideas, or wistfully commenting on some otherwise trivial thing. One breath of insight, like revelation.
The important thing to remember with haiku, perhaps moreso than longer forms, is that every word counts. You can’t afford to waste words; everything must be chosen carefully because of the limited scope.
This one is more obvious than most, but I like it as an example:
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away
Richard Wright
Haiku, in English, have strong associations with the Cold War period if not the political tensions themselves, having gained significant popularity in the post-War U.S.A. Haiku are good stay sharp, make a joke, or go for succinct commentary - if a little indirect. I have little doubt @simj22 will appear in this thread to offer a disproportionately valuable pair of cents. Definitely check out his old thread, 5-7-5.
Pantoum (Anomaly's good at these. She gets this section.)
September Elegies - Randall Mann
in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi
There are those who suffer in plain sight,
there are those who suffer in private.
Nothing but secondhand details:
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.
There are those who suffer in private.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
He was found by his mother.
The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
he was found by his mother.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,"
the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
posted on his profile.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
The words turn and turn on themselves.
Posted on his profile,
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
There are those who suffer in plain sight
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Nothing but secondhand details.
Aw, shucks. Because of some color-coding I’m doing in this section, I’m going to write in black. But it’s all Anomaly - Grey’s kept his filthy paws off for once. (Kidding, kidding.)
Buckle up and get ready to be frustrated and mildly confused. Worth it, though, because what pantoums do is they allow you to thoroughly exhaust everything a phrase could mean by forcing you to play with context.
Pantoums do not have a rhyme scheme or meter, nor a particular number of lines - rather, they are an exercise in repetition. As such, they can be any length you want, as long as you follow a few basic rules… You will be writing in quatrains, stanzas of four. So, your first stanza will be ABCD, where each letter represents NOT the closing word, but the entire line.
In a pantoum, the first and third lines of each stanza are always the same as the second and fourth lines, respectively, of the one above it. So stanza 2 will look like BEDF. Don’t worry - there’ll be examples later.
So you write your first stanza, drop down to a new one - and then write the second line again. Your next line will be an original - and then you’ll write the fourth line again, followed by another original. As I said, there’ll be examples later.
You may continue this pattern as long as you please; the last stanza, however, has a special doo-da. Just as any other paragraph, it’s first and third lines are the same as the second and fourth lines of the stanza above it. However, the second line of the last stanza is the same as the third line of the first stanza, and the last line of the last stanza is the same as the first line of the first stanza, so it comes full circle. So let’s look at the poem from before, but this time color-coded and with an alphabetized scheme next to it so you can visualize it.
September Elegies - Randall Mann,
in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi
There are those who suffer in plain sight,
A
there are those who suffer in private.
B
Nothing but secondhand details:
C
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.
D
There are those who suffer in private.
B
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
E
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
D
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
F
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
E
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
G
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
F
He was found by his mother.
H
The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
G
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
I
he was found by his mother.
H
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,"
J
the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
I
posted on his profile.
K
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
J
The words turn and turn on themselves.
L
Posted on his profile,
K
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
M
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
L
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
N
Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
M
There are those who suffer in plain sight
C
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
N
Nothing but secondhand details.
A
Got that? That’s the basics of writing a pantoum. Definitely note the example I've provided above to the right - I'll be providing it below as well, so you can read it with the color coding to highlight the repetition. As for historical connotation - this form has been used to cover a wide variety of topics and is therefore mostly free of it; however, contemporary pantoums often deal with social issues.
Something to keep in mind: When you get good at following this order, you can start pushing the boundaries. See, each line does not need to be repeated exactly and may even be fairly different, as long as there is a very clear structural and/or metaphorical resemblance. Toying with this to effect meaning and impact is always a good idea, once you have a hold of the form.
Closing Thoughts
You’ll notice a lot this was composed of examples. The reason, linking back to metaphor and how I’d have to come back to it, is simple.
If you want to write anything, but most of all poetry, you must practice, and you must read. Read poets you love, read poets you hate, practice, look for forms you’ve never seen, read poetry you don’t ‘get’. Try everything. Practice. Read everything.
Formal study certainly helps, in my opinion, but just absorbing as much as you can will teach you a lot and the internet is right here in front of you. Use your words carefully, too - you can only employ so many, so they have to count.
Whatever else Stephen King may have written [SUSPICIOUS EYEBROW INTENSIFIES], he does have one quotable moment: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” He’s not wrong, and neither’s Grey. While I certainly hope this tutorial has been helpful, you’ll get nowhere if you don’t use all the information. Read a lot - and write a lot. Doesn’t have to be good every time.
Oh, and learn to accept criticism. You don’t improve by writing in a vacuum and insisting it’s good.
I can’t begin to tell you how refreshing it is when someone responds positively to criticism. We aren’t trying to invalidate your feelings, guys… (I am) (Shhhh!) Only to indicate ways in which you might be able to get them across more potently. There’re centuries and centuries of history and culture backing us up, here; hopefully by now we’ve proved we aren’t talking out our asses!!
I’m… not sure there’s much else to say. Got anything, Grey?
Pleasure working with you, Anomaly. And you, yes, you there - why aren’t you practicing yet?
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*applauds*
