flicker (a triolet)

[pnsz]

After forty years of avoiding set form and formulaic poetry, I am now developing some peripheral interest in thinking about Sapphics and Villanelles etc. It is not that I haven't read the Fairie Queene out loud from one end to the other, but that I have meditated on where the poetry comes from. And yet, these days I do give some of my time to accentual-syllabic verse forms etcetera written by others, so I am open to any suggestions you or anyone else in this poetry forum might suggest in strengthening my responses. Why else would I have tuned in, with my eyes wide open. If I couldn't learn something about poetry from verse-making, I would not waste my time. My models are more Pound, Williams and Creeley and writing from the educated ear rather than metrical scancion. I like living in the twenty-first century. I am not being snide, but honest.

The best writer I have read on the net in the last four months writes Shakespearean sonnets, among other forms.

Peter

[HowardM2]

If I understand this post, you're asking what you can do to learn about contemporary formal poetry. First and foremost, such questions do not belong in someone else's thread in the poetry forums (as Posting Guideline #11 states, Please try to stay on topic, and the topic there is the specific poem being commented on), so your post has been split off and moved to the forum appropriate for such questions.

Second, formal poetry--poetry using rhyme and meter--is very much alive, well, and thriving in A. D. 2004, with the work of such major formal poets as Richard Wilbur, John Hollander, the recently-deceased Anthony Hecht and Donald Justice, Marilyn Hacker, Rhina P. Espaillait, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Annie Finch, A. E. Stallings, Mark Jarman, Charles Martin, Greg Williamson, Don Paterson, Eavan Boland, R. S. Gwynn, Timothy Steele, Frederick Turner, and Seamus Heaney, to name only a very few of the very best.

Third, there are a number of threads in the "Blurbs of Wisdom" forum dealing with meter, rhyme, and formal poetry. There are also a number of recommended books--both texts and anthologies--in the recommended reading thread also in "Blurbs."

[pnsz]

I know it is alive now. I talked with John Hollander about the necessity to revive it in 1988 in New York. We agreed that good metrical, rhymed verse needed to be explored again. I am appauled at how immature you are about commentary.

[pnsz]

A workshop in poetry is a dialogue, not the forced dominance of the moderator's point of view. One might have noted the hand extended outwardly in a friendly gesture in my last posting. Ask Creeley, or Rothenberg, or any comtemporary poet giving seminars on writing poetry in the Univerities I've taught poetry in about the need for mature, sophisticated give and take in a poetry workshop.

[Harry R]

Originally posted by pnsz
I know it is alive now. I talked with John Hollander about the necessity to revive it in 1988 in New York. We agreed that good metrical, rhymed verse needed to be explored again. I am appauled at how immature you are about commentary.

Odd, the idea that metrical poetry should need to be revived - important poets were writing important metrical poems throughout the twentieth century. Some of them were even American.

If you want people to take your points seriously, try expressing them in a more coherent manner. And more to the point - stay on topic in the poetry forums.

Harry

[pnsz]

The idea of reviving them was Professor Hollander's not mine. Do not lecture me. You are not mature enoughth in your attitude toward poeple. You need to learn how to talk to adults, instead of calling them incoherent.

[pnsz]

Name calling is offensive.

[Harry R]

Originally posted by pnsz
The idea of reiving them was Professor Hollander's not mine. Do not lecture me. You are not mature enought in your attitude toward poeple.

I wasn't lecturing you, I was making a sincere point. When I read the post at the top of this thread, I was left with no idea what point you were making. Howard seems to have had the same reaction, and I imagine he moved the thread here and made a best guess at what you were trying to say, and responded accordingly.

If you have some particular point to make, either about the way PFFA functions or the nature of metrical poetry, then make it. All I'm interested in saying is this: please respect the local etiquette, and make sure your posts in the poetry forums are about the poem at hand.

Harry

[Harry R]

Originally posted by pnsz
Name calling is offensive.

Pot, let me introduce you to this fine kettle.

[HowardM2]

I have absolutely no clue as to what you're on about and frankly don't care. Regardless, in future, don't comment on extraneous matters in someone else's thread in a poetry forum.

[pnsz]

pax to all

Peter

[Rik Roots]

Originally posted by pnsz
The idea of reviving them was Professor Hollander's not mine. Do not lecture me.
Formal poetry never died in England. Just because the North American poetry scene seems to have developed some sort of mental illness on the formal/free verse issue doesn't mean that the rest of the English-speaking world has to join them in the senseless arguments.

If the formal verse threads in the Blurbs of Wisdom do not meet your needs, then Google will be your friend. Alternatively, there's always Able Muse's Eratosphere.

[Donner]

Originally posted by pnsz
A workshop in poetry is a dialogue, not the forced dominance of the moderator's point of view.

But it's okay if an individual member decides his views should dominate. Uh huh.

One might have noted the hand extended outwardly in a friendly gesture in my last posting. Ask Creeley, or Rothenberg, or any comtemporary poet giving seminars on writing poetry in the Univerities I've taught poetry in about the need for mature, sophisticated give and take in a poetry workshop.

I would love to assume that everyone here is going to behave in a mature, sophisticated manner. However, this is a free internet poetry workshop, not a private workshop that people have paid good money to attend or a university workshop filled with earnest writers--who have paid good money to attend. Because of the nature of internet poetry sites, discussions tend to get personal and wander hither, thither and yon, so we have rules--one of which is to stay on topic in the poetry forums. That's why we have Voyages of Discovery. One benefit to that--you'll get a far wider-ranging discussion if you start it here.

We're not saying you can't have a dialogue. We only ask that you start discussions in the proper venue.

Donner