Though form in modern poetry has dramatically declined in usage since the last fifty years, this does not demean the power that structure has as an entertaining learning tool. Writing free verse or open format poetry can be strengthened by exercises in form.
Each constriction that one gives oneself or another for a creation of a poem can be formed in correspondence with your and your friends’ weaknesses. For instance, if you find your sound sense, or understanding of how sounds affect a poem, is lacking, you can write a poem using particular letters as a focused resonance. Instead of writing many poems in the same style, and trying to learn by quantity, using forms as practice can aid your growth considerably in the area of correcting your flaws.
Kinds of Restrictions
The possibilities for poetic restrictions are almost unending, yet there are certain ideas that poets use to create exercises. Voice, length, rhyme and sound are the most common elements of a specified poetic form. You can mix these elements for more difficulty, or use a straight-forward method of one element to correct an exact debility that you know you want to improve.
Concentration on Voice
This is one of the most popular restrictions for teachers of poetry and English. It confines the poet to write in a particular voice or character. An important aspect of this focus is to convey a mood, and to keep this mood, in the majority of cases, consistent throughout the poem. An example of this approach would be to write as if you are four years old, and had lost your mother in an airport. You would therefore be attentive to write in a way that would be limited to a four year old’s speech and mentality.
Regulated by Length
Length is usually specified to lines, stanzas, words and syllables. Variation on length can break a poet out of habit or challenge their conciseness or demonstrate balance in longer pieces. Say that one is a poet who prefers brief writing. That poet could write a poem with five stanzas, each having seven lines. This would force the poet to compose a poem that he or she would commonly write in two stanzas or less to be expounded upon in a longer form. Restrictions based on syllables are frequently of the greatest complication in this category.
Free form poets often despise the counting of syllables, but trying to work through this constraint can be enlightening on the placement and rhythm of words.
Restriction of Rhyme
Though many poets have forbidden themselves to write in rhyme, it can not only be an entertaining exercise, but a way to see the connection between words and sounds. When poems are said to be musical, most of the time the author of the poem has written a significant amount of poems in rhyme to find this melodic touch.
There are, besides end rhymes, many other types of rhymes. Last syllable rhymes, double rhymes, beginning rhymes, first syllable rhymes and slant rhymes are also used. Slant rhymes are one of the most intriguing variations of rhymes, as it does not exactly rhyme in a traditional sense, but creates sounds that are similar in a more subtle way.
Moderation of Sound
Choosing to focus on sound as a restriction increases a poet’s powers of observation in melodic structure and the inherit oral aspects of a poem. Just like music, sometimes it is not the meaning that uplifts or transforms the readers, but its sound. There can be poetry, like music, that we can listen to and not understand its information on a intellectual basis, but on an understanding of hearing. Though it is best to have a combination of both meaning and sound, as more elements call for more comprehension. One example of a sound related constraint would be to have every line end with the letter ’s,’ or to have a minimum of two of the letter ’o’ in each line. Naturally your poems will develop a strong tonal atmosphere that is connected to the specified letter.
The most important principle in the practice of restricted poetry is to enjoy it. Almost every type of constraint, no matter how great a mortal poet you are, will benefit you. For those who disdain form, try to see it as a game, something to overcome in your progress of becoming a well-rounded poet.
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