Poetry Forum

Serious poetry shit now!

This is one that has cropped up on Post-a-Poem a couple of times.

It seems to me that there are two different situations which are not desirable. (I'm sure some of you will disagree!)

1) Where the poet attempts a tight, complex form like a sonnet for example and as a result the content of the poem is strangled out of existence. (If you can write a trad sonnet like Auden and still maintain sense and beauty in the content then hats off to you - but not many of us are in his league.)

2) Where the poet is purely concerned with content and makes no concession to either meter, stanza forms, syllable counting or even (in some cases) punctuation.

Ideally, I think, there should be a harmonious compromise with content fitting into form and form helping to shape content.

Thoughts please.

Cam

I think the 2 roads (form/content) are defined from the beginning of starting to write poetry, so it could be personal V academic.

I believe if you start writing poetry from a personal point of view, simply to express your feelings, teen angst etc, then content is all important. If on the other hand you've studied poetry, then the approach may well be confined to form, content being secondary.

Either way I believe one is often sacrificed for the other. (not always)

Its when you start to discuss these issues on forums like this, or creative writing classes etc, that you can then start to blend the two. Two roads meeting to make a much longer, more complex one.

To borrow what Camus has already mentioned, my opinions run in a similar track.

When I first began writing--as an angst-filled, sex-starved teenager--I loathed form and meter and all things even remotely to do with them. In fact if a poem rhymed, I threw it out for drivel. Looking back, my poetry from those times is self-indulgent, bloated and boring.

As the years have passed I have dabbled hither and yon with forms and even taken a class or two (echoes of "Oh, the humanity!" can be heard even now) to learn an appreciation for form. I since have fallen in love with the restraints of form (bondage freak, I know). I find the art of poetry is not just in its imagery but in its complexities, the gut and grit that make up the inner workings being just as important, if not more so than the skins we hang on them. My opinions have since shifted almost to the complete reverse, as you might imagine. I find myself throwing out much of the formless that is presented to me as the same drivel that form once was.

I think there are few poets who can actually use words and words alone to captivate a reader, or even captivate himself when reviewing his work. This set down; form equips the writer to more precisely and concisely articulate his emotions by understanding he must attempt to do so within a particular format of his choosing. Without it poems may easily turn to bi-polar rants or worse: pedantic blob-like accusations, neither of which is a bad thing when treating poetry as a purely purgative medium, but (I'll hazard an assumption here), if you expect not to want to gag yourself on the next reading or turn off the wandering and fickle eye of the average reader, form or at least the depth it provides (providing it is used thus), I believe is quite necessary in the progression of establishing expression as true art.

My thoughts.

--A.S.

'People may think they like the form because they like the content, or think they like the content because they like the form. In the perfect poet they fit and are the same thing; and in another sense they always are the same thing. So it is true to say that form and content are the same thing, and always true to say they are different things.'

T.S. Eliot
(from his introduction to Pound's Selected Poems)

So there you go then.

T. S. Eliot can say the most confusing things at times. I found his "insight" into Shakespeare rather lacking though.

I agree with the general verdict from all that post here - which is that content should not conform to the form. However, another question is should form conform to the content?

I think form should bend, and that some forms are more appropriate for some topics than others. For example, I think there are some subjects that would not be dealt with well in a classic ABAB, CDCD rhyming poem. Death, for example. Maybe that's simply an example of my lack of creative ability, but...ah well.

- Caleb

Cam-

You're the one with the M.A. - what did the educated have to say about this topic?

- Caleb

cameron wrote:Serious poetry shit now!

This is one that has cropped up on Post-a-Poem a couple of times.

It seems to me that there are two different situations which are not desirable. (I'm sure some of you will disagree!)

1) Where the poet attempts a tight, complex form like a sonnet for example and as a result the content of the poem is strangled out of existence. (If you can write a trad sonnet like Auden and still maintain sense and beauty in the content then hats off to you - but not many of us are in his league.)

2) Where the poet is purely concerned with content and makes no concession to either meter, stanza forms, syllable counting or even (in some cases) punctuation.

Ideally, I think, there should be a harmonious compromise with content fitting into form and form helping to shape content.

Thoughts please.

Cam

Content is king, if it does not hold (or more aptly, generate) interest, it does not matter. That being said, every thing you mention in 2) is a tool, and only a tool to help shape the impact of the content. The dirty secret of poetry is repitition, and what is done with that repititon, nothing more.
(pattern recognition)

In a very round about way, I agree with you, but sometimes that form will not be recognised as a "form" to an eye that is overtrained in one tool or another.

Of course, one pursues this route at one's own peril.

Is there a 'right' way to write a poem? Well I think everyone will agree the answer is no. As I have become more comfortable and confident with the tools I learned at university, and also as I have managed to contain to a certain extent the 'angry' youth in myself that first read and fell in love with poetry, I have come to think of form and content as feeding to and from each other. Often nowadays I find that the form comes to me as naturally as the content, literally flowing from my mind onto the page. I don't think that either one takes precedent over the other and I think it quite unecessary to worry about balancing the two.

The great poets achieved things in both the form and the content of poems that came (and this is purely my opinion) from an ability to breathe what they wrote. What I mean by this is that you don't think about breathing you just do it and the same can apply with poems. If you worry about whether the form and the content are in the correct balance then you will probably end up with a rather mechanical sounding poem or one that drifts and wanders aimlessly. If you relax when writing then this (in my experience) will not be the case.

This all assumes of course that the writer is familiar enough with the rules to be able to apply them without thought, which is a skill that can come only from writing more and becoming more comfortable with the tools that are at your disposal.