I always thought a poem was something that came with a specific, repeated rhythm and a rhyming word every other line. At least, this was how “Poetry” was taught in every literature segment I’d ever experienced from kindergarten up through grade school. At that level, poetry was simple, but fun. I remember teachers going over various different forms across the board. There were haikus: a short form of poetry originating from Japan which consisted of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern.
This is a haiku
and rather interesting
is its use of form
Then there were sonnets—a personal favorite of mine. Technically a sonnet is a poem which consists of fourteen lines and uses any general rhyme scheme, but most often the sonnet is paired with iambic pentameter: a specific pattern of verse that jumps between pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables within a ten-syllable line.
Thĕ éffĕrvéscĕnt húes ŏf góldĕn fíre
Shakespeare was quite famous for crafting sonnets in iambic pentameter, and this pattern is also found in many lines of dialogue throughout his plays.
Along with sonnets and haikus, my early days of schooling also covered couplets, odes, limericks, and blank verse, but every form always had either a rhyme or a meter attached to it.
It wasn’t until I reached high school when I started learning about free verse, which is a form of poetry that is not bound by any meter or rhyme scheme. Upon realizing this, my first thought was Freedom. At last: professionalism. No longer did my poetry have to be limited to childish rhymes and clunky meters and all that “junk” they taught in grade school. My poetic thoughts could flow naturally, as they were always meant to.
It wasn’t until later, when I went off to college to get my BFA, that I realized I suck at free verse.
Those “poetic thoughts” of mine were, in fact, not poetic at all: they were quite simple, and far too literal. I couldn’t make anyone feel how blue the sky or green the grass was; I could only say it. I could not weave expressive narratives with subtle pokes at society and politics the way my classmates could. I could not make sense out of nonsense, or form my stanzas into patters that meant “something else.” I was trapped in this endless loop of saying the things I wanted to say in a straightforward and rational manner.
Which works well for prose; not so much for poetry.
Eventually, in an effort to make it through my Advanced Poetry class, I decided to use my literal sense to my advantage and follow that old creative writing axiom: Write drunk; edit sober. (Though, I will clarify: never smashing drunk—just a comfortable tipsiness.) And while I made it through Advanced Poetry with my head held high enough to pass, the experience of being in an academic environment that frowned upon childish rhymes and predictable meters taught me something valuable about writing poems: I, personally, need limitation.
The issue with having too literal a mindset means that typical poetic phrases don’t come to me naturally. As demonstrated above, I either have to be inebriated or half-asleep to even sound close to being profound. But because of this trait, I have reversed my adolescent bias and found a kind of comfort in structured verse. Now, it is not so much a limitation as it is a challenge: keeping a specific meter forces my brain to find better words—words that fit the rhythm, words I might not have even considered otherwise; having to stick to specific rhymes leads me to more expressive imagery and ideas.
And it is because of this discovery that many of my poems today are actually written with strict limitations and only later disguised as free verse. One of my top strategies is not rhyme or meter, but based on a process invented by a fellow poetry student. I won’t give away her secret, but part of it involves confining your poem to a literal box shape on the computer. Often, this is my go-to choice when faced with creating a poem from scratch. And the results from embracing the “limitations” of structure have pleased me far more than any of my free-verse poems have.
So, for anyone out there who might share my frustration in their dreams of writing decent poetry (if not becoming the next Emily Dickenson altogether), don’t be too quick to push away those well-structured verses and sing-songy meters they teach in grade school and Poetry for Beginners. These forms have remained and been taught over the course of centuries for a reason; if nothing else, they are perfect for exercising the mind and stretching creative ideas when words might otherwise fail you.
— C.M.
Night Owls, what is your favorite form of poetry? What do you do when the words just aren’t coming to you?
