anyone interested in formalist workshops?

A while back we batted around the idea of doing workshops on different types of poetry, but only the minimalist one really ever got very far (Norman made some very interesting posts on the importance of lines in poetry, but the discussion was fairly short-lived.)

Would anyone be interested in doing some formalist workshops? I was thinking that we could pick a different form each week, and then write and crit stuff in that form that week. At the beginning of each week someone (me, if no one else wants to) could pick a form and post a brief explanation to get us running. We could pick a range of short to long, familiar to unfamiliar stuff: anything from senryu to sonnet, villanelle to venpa. (OK, maybe not venpa. I'm far too lazy to learn Tamil just to write a new form of poetry. )

Anyne interested ?

Norman, my idea was that we'd spend a week posting and critting examples of a form. The games let people play with posting, but there's rarely feedback. Also, they generally stick to shorter forms; you mention haiku (more often those are really senryu) and cinquain, and I can easily imagine a game for clerihews, but they very rarely delve into something more complex like a terza rima.

Billytwice said:

In fact I think I am, do you mean concentrating on a single poetic form such as a sonnet or a haiku for a week?
Or going down the road I've just travelled?

Click to expand...

Billy: Yes, I mean concentrating on single traditional forms, rather than 'New Formalism'. Though as the article states that New Formalism is a return to those forms, it may come to much the same thing.

Quick note: I'm going to get it started now, but since I expect (hope!) we will be posting and working on poems there, I'll put it in the crit forum so it's password protected.