Do you know, I don't really have an answer to your question about structured forms giving way to free verse.
I think as children we are naturally attuned to rhyme and rhythm. Certainly rhythm. I think this stays with us all our lives, although it may become more complex and less obvious, while perhaps with time we grow out of the need for rhyme. We seldom rhyme in daily speech, but good speech has a natural rhythm.
Looking at my own poems I see a rhythm which is close to that of speech. I have never really felt the need for rhyme except, perhaps, like Shakespeare's closing couplets - I often find that a poem has ended thus. I didn't start writing poetry till I was in my middle fifties anyway, so maybe I had simply gotten out of the habit of rhyming.
I like poems that have a structure where it assists the poem. And I appreciate a successful
poem in a difficult verse-form providing the poem works well as a poem and not just as a bit of technical virtuosity. Some poems, like the ones I just posted, simply 'arrived' and needed only a little tinkering to get them to their present form, which was nice. But I had been thinking about haiku for quite a while, so maybe it wasn't quite as accidental as it seemed.
It's interesting to take a free verse poem and try to structure it. By using synonyms of a different syllabic length it is possible to turn an unstructured poem into one that has a definite shape. Another trick is to beat out the sound of the words and see whether you have unconsciously created a rhythm. I am willing to bet that you have.
Anybody else want to comment?
jane
ymursawsib <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
I agree with you regarding the challenge and poets trying out new
forms; in fact before the emergence of free verse, poets kept on
discovering new poetic forms and metres, as you know.
I have noticed something in my case as well as some other poets - I
used to write only rhyming and metred verse when I first started
out, I was a very young school girl then. I couldn't seem to write
free verse or blank verse at all, even when I consciously tried to.
Those came much later, in my teens/pre-teens, in fits and starts. I
discussed this with a few poets and they were more or less
unanimous. Now I wonder, does structured verse come naturally to
people and this free flowing poetry, is it something we acquire as
we grow older and more worldly?
You know, Jane, nowadays I don't even feel like writing anything
that needs to follow a set form, something has happened, changed
within me; and I don't have answers to that. I just write what
something deep inside tells me to.
Regards,
Rumjhum
--- In ZESTPoets@yahoogroups.com, jane bhandari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>
> I don't think one has to adhere to forms, far from it, but poetic
forms (some more than most) present a challenge akin to solving the
London Times crossword...which is why poets do it. Eventually it is
not enough to just write a poem, hence the emergence of the sonnet,
the triolet, etc etc. I think every good poet eventually tries some
or all of the forms. It is interesting when you get a form crossing
into another culture, such as the ghazal - which has not been a
successful transplant, on the whole. I have seen some really
gruesome samples.
> The haiku is deceptively simple, looks so easy, but if you stick
to the rules it suddenly becomes tough. Well, I did manage to stay
with the 5-7-5 syllables and the twist in the third line, but there
is no reference to nature, which theoretically is required.
> A senriyu has five lines, in which the last two are a reply to
the first and are often composed by someone else.
> Yes, I also liked it, regardless of technicalities. It was in
response to a question so I have a personal attachment to it. It's
nice to know that somebody else liked it without knowing the baggage
behind it.
>
> Loved the pink tourists. It almost sounds like a
dish...Traveller a la Jaipur, perhaps? Or sun-dried tourist? I seem
to be still on my Dracula drift.
>
> Jane
>
> Rumjhum Biswas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> Thank you!
>
> I don't know what a senriyu is, and I can't write haikus at all.
But I really liked FISHING (this is NOT a return compliment).
>
> Does it really matter whether one strictly adheres to a
particular poetic form or not? I feel a poem's success and how it
strikes a chord with the reader depends more on its imagery,
personal rhythm and movement etc. So once again I really enjoyed the
poem!
>
> My appendix is dead and cremated. I celebrated its demise
throughout christmas week, right up till New Year's Day; and I have
the girth to prove it!
>
> :-) Rumjhum
>
> PS: Talking of pink tourists, they don't get any pinker than the
locals at Bondy beach, Sydney, which is jam packed in the
afternoons! Believe me under that absolutely blazing hot sun,
without an ozone layer to protect anyone, and it was one thirty in
the afternoon, those crazy Ozzies were baking and loving it, and we
(Indians and Singaporeans, both sunlanders) had already scurried for
cover in the tourist bus and were wilting within its air-conditioned
confines! I feel hot every time I remember that beach!
>
> On 1/11/06, jane bhandari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: Hey, nice, I
liked that, especially the bit about the tourists. They really are
so pink.
>
> How is your appendix?
>
> Poem for you, or rather, two haikus that rely heavily on each
other. A new form? I tried to make it into a senriyu but it didn't
go.
>
> FISHING
>
> You asked, if I died,
> Would you come to my funeral?
> (Fishing for love's proof.)
>
> I said, if I did,
> Would it raise you from the dead?
> (I too was fishing.)
>
>
> jane bhandari
>
> ymursawsib <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
>
>
> I wrote it during the spell of unusual wet weather in Chennai.
> Edited it a little later. Now the weather being what it is in
> Northern India, thought you all might enjoy it.
>
> Best,
>
> Rumjhum
>
>
> MY TAKE ON THE SUN
>
> 1/ The Talking
> This soggy mess, this inept bunch of forecasters and
> that Sun! I
> can't even take my customary morning walk
> so let me throw caution to the winds and invite
> His High and Mightiness, Mister Hot Balls himself
> ask him to give me company
> What is that cheat doing up there?
> He's perched himself like a golden parrot
> gaily swinging in his cobalt cage, with
> a sheet of clouds below to catch his droppings!
> I can almost see that lazy lout stretching out a long
> clawed foot and plucking a comet delicately
> A treat he eschews like a chilly pepper freshly plucked
> from the shrub.
> He had his fun with Kunti, wretched woman that she was.
> Now he is having fun with us!
>
> 2/ The Walking
> Yes. A walkabout with the sun could be fun. I will
> Dress up in a black track suit and wear sun shades to match,
> So he won't be able to steal the show. Now imagine us,
> Two pictures of contrast walking side by side and here's
> The best part: I could actually use him to grill a fish or two
> Snatched from the sea before sunrise. How about
> some crabs as well? I could bake those
> in the sand when Sunny Boy sits down to let
> the foam swipe his toes. I could offer
> him some groundnuts provided he offers
> to roast them for me. I ought to give him something
> to quench his thirst with -
> tender green coconut with a pink striped straw?
>
> 3/ The Hawking
> Imagine all the tourists flocking in to get a free tan -
> rows and rows of naked buttocks whiter than clams
> getting ruddier by the turn, and our footprints
> burning on the sand. And gulls with shells
> in their beaks, neatly parted to show the meat,
> florid lobsters frisking each other in the ocean, boiling
> around discarded groundnut shells, plastic bags, paper cups,
> stuff that mess up the sea. Now the Sun would see to that
> stuff getting recycled into fine dust particles as white
> as the bleached dead corals.
>
> 4/ The Stalking
> We would resume our walk again, westward ho!
> And, this time I would stride beside him -
> a guide, a friend, a comrade in arms. And
> the Sun and I would tramp past rows of traffic snarls
> burning the city buses to cinders, turning the cars into can-
openers
> crisping the bikes till they melted into garden tools,
> and furrowed through loose earth. Free up the roads -
> Literally hundreds of shiny bicycles let loose
> pinging their bells past brisk feet.
> This time though, I would be the black shadow chasing the Sun
> back to his rightful place, singing, "hut tut tut tut."
> And tie a cow bell round the Sun's flaming neck.
>
> © Rumjhum Biswas November 2005
>
>
>
>
>
>
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