"Technique is neither identical with form, nor yet wholly independent of it. It is, properly, the skill with which the elements constituting form are managed. Otherwise it is show-off or a virtuosity separated from expression.

Significant advances in technique occur, therefore, in connection with efforts to solve problems that are not technical but that grow out of the need for new modes of experience. This statement is as true of esthetic arts as of the technological."

—John Dewey, Art as Experience

"O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
how can we know the dancer from the dance?" 

—W.B. Yeats

 

Form and Poetry

 

"Poetry" is an incredibly varied kind of language, and trying to define it is really difficult—not to mention possibly futile (because it is ever evolving) and finally unnecessary (it will be written whether or not definitions are concocted for it!). In general practice, though, when we refer to "poetry," we're usually talking about a specific genre called lyric poetry.  Lyric poetry tends to be distinguished from other kinds of language by its self-conscious or especially concentrated attention to image, sound, rhythm, and metaphor; its intuitive and associational logic; and its heavy reliance on pattern. 

Patterns in poetry also vary considerably, but usually involve free or fixed repetitions of stress, sound, word, line, or groups of lines (stanzas). It's important to know, too, that form isn't something tacked-on to a poem; it's always an integral part of a piece, intentional or otherwise. And most traditional forms in poetry came out of natural features of the language and our basic love of sound and rhythm.

 


Line Patterns


Fixed line patterns in Western poetry take several forms: 1) accentual, 2) syllabic, and 3) accentual-syllabic. 


1)      Accentual lines are determined/measured by number of STRESSES. Early English verse was heavily accentual and alliterative, and lines tended to be split into two half-lines of two heavy stresses each:

In a summer season      when soft was the sun

I shaped me in shrouds      as a shepherd I were

In habit as a hermit     unholy of works

Went wide in this world     wonders to hear

Notice in the lines above that each half-line has two heavily stressed syllables, and that each line is heavily alliterative—that is, certain consonants get obviously and noisily repeated in each line.  The effect tends to be a bit repetitious and unnuanced:  Bonk-bonk—pause.  Bonk-bonk—pause.  And so on.  The simplicity can be somewhat beautiful too, of course. 

 

2)      Syllabic lines are determined/measured by number of  SYLLABLES.  One famous syllabic form is the haiku, a three-line poem whose line-syllable count is 5-7-5:

That pale butterfly
Dancing lightly on a branch:
Someone's old condom.

Distant siren screams
Dumb-ass Verne's been playing with
Gasoline again.

Syllabics are a bit odd when used in English, because English is a heavily stressed, Germanic language.  In other words, they aren’t really integral to the sound of English and don’t get heard or felt the way accents or stresses do.  They are more natural in non-Germanic languages which don’t rely nearly as much on stress for meaning (Romance languages, for example:  French, Spanish, Italian.) 


3)      Accentual-syllabic lines are determined/measured by counting BOTH stresses AND syllables. Each unit of stressed and unstress syllables is called a foot.

Types of Feet (samples)

/ – • /  One unstressed /one stressed  = iamb

/ • – /  One stressed/one unstressed = trochee

/ – – • /  Two unstressed/one stressed = anapest

/ • – – /  One stressed/two unstressed = dactyl   

Types of Meter (samples)

Three feet per line = trimeter

Four feet per line = tetrameter

Five feet per line = pentameter

Six feet per line= sextameter  

Seven feet per line = septameter

 

Types of Lines (samples)

A line with four anapestic feet = anapestic tetrameter

A line with three dactylic feet = dactylic trimeter

A line with five iambic feet = iambic pentameter

A line with six iambic feet = iambic sextameter

 

One of the more famous lines in English is iambic pentameter. A poem written in nothing but unrythmed, iambic pentameter lines is called blank verse. For samples CLICK HERE.  You’ll notice from looking at, say, Robert Frost’s “Birches” that, even though a poem may have some lines strictly adhering to the metrical count, many lines fall out of the pattern.  That’s because strict adherence to any pattern can become monotonous and even silly-sounding.  Expressiveness and interest is usually achieved through establishing the pattern, and then skillfully breaking it.

 


Stanza Patterns

 

Types of lines can in turn be grouped into types of stanzas with specific rhyme schemes.  Three traditional stanza forms are the sonnet, the villanelle, and the sestina. For samples of these forms, CLICK HERE.  


See also Modern American Poetry's discussion of forms.


Sound Patterns


Lyric poems tend to be rich in sonic patterns and echoes of many kinds. All of these patterns are sometimes just referred to as rhyme.

True Rhyme = middle vowel and final consonant sounds are identical (e.g. cat/hat). Or: final vowel sound, if there is no final consonant, are identical (e.g., bee/see).

Slant, Partial, or Near Rhyme = initial and/or final consonant sounds are the same, but the primary middle vowel sound is "slanted" or off (e.g. hat/heat; bee/bay).

Assonance = repetition of vowel sounds (e.g., "How sweet that Spring will soon be creeping into our seriously screaming brains and heal us.")

Alliteration = repetition of initial consonant sounds (e.g., "Can the cute clucking; it's cracking me up.")

Consonance = repetition of final consonant sounds (e.g., "Can the darn run; we won't win.")

Hard rhyme = the rhyming syllables are stressed (e.g., cat/hat)

Light rhyme = the rhyming syllables are followed by unstressed syllables (e.g., mumbling/fumbled)

End rhyme = words at the end of lines rhyme

Internal rhyme = words within lines rhyme


CLICK HERE FOR SOME POEMS TO DISCUSS IN RELATION TO SOUND.

Free Verse

Poems written without strict or predetermined metrical, stanzaic, or sound patterns are said to be in "free verse" or "open form." This is something of a misnomer, however, because most free verse lyric poems are in fact heavily patterned. Their patterns of stresses, syllable count, vowel or consonant repetition etc. are simply less regular than poems written "in form," and these patterns are likely discovered or happened onto in the course of being written (rather than determined in advance).The length of free verse lines is generally determined (if not actually measured or consciously chosen) in the following ways:
  • by rhetorical emphasis
  • by breath units
  • by phrasing
  • by end-stopped pattern
  • by endjammed pattern
  • by visual emphasis
  • by aural emphasis

Oral Form

(Information coming)


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