Composing Without Form

a true poem declares itself as such.

i've seen profound poems that adhere to no established form or structure, and i've seen steaming piles of shit that are flawlessly adherent to form.

not sure what you mean by "undefined."

SecretIona101 said:

Well, and I'm sure there is some fitting description of poetry, there's really no finite elements that make a poem a poem.

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of course there are.

SecretIona101 said:

Oh well, I respectfully disagree.
There are no parameters that
make a text a poem.
I do not think a text can qualify,
nor be disqualified,
as a poem due to
any type of requirement.

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^not a poem^

relax. i'm not being argumentative, although you've got me on sarcasm.

if there is no criteria for what makes a poem a poem, then there is no such thing as poetry.

i am an avid consumer and author of free-verse poetry, so i agree with your original contention, that the definition of poetry should not (and does not) rely on writing to a template, form-wise.

however, poetry IS something quite different from a novel, or a short story, or a shopping list or a newspaper article.

and while that difference need not be measured by a checklist of elements compiled through some academic classification, it does need to offer as its distinction one or more elements that elevate it and give it the distinct mental and emotional flavor that separates it from a press release, an interview with justin beiber, a letter to penthouse or the boilerplate fine print on the back of your cable bill (all of which, by your logic upthread, could make a claim of being poetry).

in the interest of brevity, i will paste a response i gave on this matter a while back:

William Haskins said:

free verse owes the art form no formal structure or mandated meter; it is, however, accountable for the effective transference of an idea or image, and still differs (as is evident in your example) from prose in its application of metaphor, its compression of language and some sense of fluidity, if not musicality, through the select and opportune use of formal elements like rhyme, etc., but without being obligated to do so by some codified precedent.

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ETA:

SecretIona101 said:

When you read "Because I could not stop for death" do you actually believe that Emily Dickinson went on a ride with the grim reaper?

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frankly, yes.

People bring expectations to everything. Poetry is subject to more expectations than any poet can ever hope to stave off. Those expectations can manifest as almost a demand by readers that one's poem be or do something different than it was ever intended to be or do ... and that is not necessarily any better than whatever it is or attempts.

Poets have to know, going in, that readers may not be inherently well-oriented toward any particular poem, and may therefore reject it, either wholly or in part, out of hand. The poet should no more expect perfect sympathy with every reader than should readers expect the same with every poem.*

It may well be that not a bit of that has the slightest thing to do with the quality of the poem itself.

At any rate, poets have to be okay with that. Writing poetry is not for the thin-skinned.
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*Maybe the trick, then, is to get them to read more than one?

William Haskins said:

frankly, yes.

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Haha! You are correct, Sir!

Blarg said:

Writing poetry is not for the thin-skinned.

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ain't that the truth...

I've tried and tried to write poetry without form, and have almost always failed. My creativity is released when I write poetry to a certain form. I'm sure this isn't true for all poets, but it's true for me.

Norman D Gutter said:

I've tried and tried to write poetry without form, and have almost always failed. My creativity is released when I write poetry to a certain form. I'm sure this isn't true for all poets, but it's true for me.

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few things are as sublimely satisfying as a well-constructed formalist work.

The same thing often happens when writing in genre.

To answer the original question:

It depends. Sometimes I set out to write a poem of a particular form, and the form finds a topic; other times, I start out with a phrase or a word I like, and it expands into a form (or absence thereof). Sometimes I start with a theme or a storyline, but not often: I frequently have no idea how the poem will end when I begin it.

This is why I got out of the habit of entering contests: I don't find forms to be limiting, but I find themes or set topics to be extremely restrictive.

And I completely agree that the form, if used, should support the poem, rather than be its focus. I like using forms, but because of the effect they can have. I do think it can be very much worth the effort of fitting the poem to the form, but the fit has to be elegant and seamless.

Formal or free, poetry is not a slapdash affair to me - but how much work it requires depends on the intended audience.

Now, I'll just natter on, as I tend to do on this topic.

I just don't accept the demonisation of form. Forms are tools, frameworks, there for the poet to use as she desires. Setting out to write a poem explicitly free from form or device would seem at least as limiting - why insist on not using tools? If they don't suit the task, then by all means don't. But to call them limiting or restrictive doesn't make sense to me.

Songwriters don't rebel against 3/4 or 4/4 time (or 6/8, or 2/4, or the others that are essentially the same) - they use it to advantage. Quick - name five popular Western songs that aren't written in one of those time signatures. Brubeck's Take Five (5/4) and Blue Rondo a la Turk (9/8) - there's two. Does that mean music's too hidebound?

Painters almost always use rectangular canvases or other surfaces - they don't have to, but they do. Were Picasso, Dali, Pollock, any others, less inventive for the orthogonality of their borders?

I've said before that form gets a bad name, but only because it's the fall guy for cliché - hackneyed rhymes, clumsy meter, lazy construction. (I'm not a fan in general of just dumping words on a page and calling them a poem: I know precisely one poet who I believe does well, and I think he has an innate talent for composing words as they emerge. But it's not a practice I'd encourage for the general aspiring poet.)

The notion that poetry is restricted by the tyranny of form and standard device is, in my view, false.

Interesting thread---when hopping into sarcasm, I'm glad I missed the most heated portion of it (I kinda promised myself not to )

Most of this has been said many times across many threads, but it never gets old. A question as old as poetry itself with as many opinions as poems written... perhaps.

See here.

Also, a quote of my own that I also tend to repeat across many threads :

It’s true that free verse can allow the poet to hide a lack of skill behind the absence of structured metrical nuance, but equally true that metrical structure can be used to curtain a lack of imagination behind convention.

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To answer the question:

SecretIona101 said:

Does anyone feel the same? Or not?

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I do... and I don't. I like my poem to speak for itself, to be the poem about whatever to whoever. if it is intended to emote, it should. If it is intended to express, it should. No force or strain to be about anything in particular, but just be what it is, and the best that that can be. I like my skill and craftmanship to make that possible, unnoticed at first, but visible on deconstruction or analysis. I write layered poetry by way of layered methodology. But that's me, not any other poet and I wouldn't expect it from another either--unless, that is, the attempt to do so is there, whether by nature or by forceful insertion. Writing to (pre-existing; established) structure helps me, but structuring to what fits me and my work best, improves the final work.

Yeah, I don't really pay attention to form. I write haikus sometimes, but that's the only real form I use. Another "form," which isn't really a form at all, that I use is Kerouac's "jazz" form...basically, just fill up a small notebook-sized page with automatic (yet meaningul, since it comes from the soul) wordage. It's unsophisticated, and that's how I like my poetry.

Here's an example from a chapbook of mine:

Wait! Wait for it, the stars
bursting from the red center pop,
nude women in ankle-socks
gazing up at the center, holy
red cherry exploding in the black
of the night sky, charming
midnight

Run for awhile
through the field here—
of legal grass (our backs hurt
our ass hurt
ow, ouch, owie, ah!)
smoke from the red center pop
falls down on us naked
in this itch-field

In this sacred moment—
we’re gonna scream loud