hello Cindy. :) a great topic, one of poetry's most important I think.
I have a great dislike for 'formal form', a dislike that has developed
slowly, after influence both from poetry that is formal to the extreme
& from poetry that is non-formal. one lack that I've long observed in
freeverse is that of a wall-like strain; non-formal poetry is not
'unconstrained' (no poetry is), it's just constrained by subtler
elements. but poems written in a form like the shakespearean sonnet,
say, are to me more often unremarkable than are freeverse poems. when
there is a scheme of rhymes & stresses, there is a constraint present
on the language of poetry that is more like a straitjacket than a
guiding grip; there is an immense leash on sheer CHOICE. "only a
phrase ending with _this_ sound can be used here, because that's what
the scheme dictates." some people find this a thrill -- I can see
that, & I can say I've felt the same thrill on the few occasions I've
come to write a villanelle or a sonnet. other people find it not only
a thrill but also a technique promoting originality & power -- I take
issue with this idea, though I don't deny it outright.
originality is needed to breathe life into the schema itself, which on
its own is empty & formless, without meaning: a mathematical exercise.
to make that exercise something enjoyable & challenging demands
prowess. more prowess than I've even had the pleasure of seeing in
publication; that is, I've almost never come across a form-al poem
written in a way that challenges the form's stuffy classical
demeanour. Plath's "To Eva Descending the Stair" is the only one I can
recall. then there's Dylan Thomas, of course, who was a master.
as for power, I can see how the repetition & the progression of a
schematic poem can lend the piece a type of strength or energy. it can
be dramatic, frightening, unnerving, comedic.. but always in a more or
less classical sense. the feeling of formality is ever-present. & with
a form like the sonnet where the scheme is not only relentless but
also less sophisticated than something like the villanelle, the
repetition & rule-ness ceases to be a positive effect & becomes
numbing, predictable, weightless -- or it can do (&, i.m.o., more
often than not really does).
no form is bland or powerless in itself; this is because no form _has_
any power or form until it is utilised. it's only a mathematical,
theoretical figure. what fills out the figure is what defines it & its
quality; but putting technical constraints on what may fill the figure
is what makes formally formal poetry inherently slightly doomed. even
if a form is carried out well, interestingly, smoothly, originally, it
has been carried out thus as an experiment rather than as a procession
of linguistic choices made for the sake of what is being written.
KS
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