Poetry ... rules?

[gmw]

I was this afternoon, while at a loss with the strange frame of mind in which I found my head, browsing the User Poetry thread. Some interesting reading in there, and I have by no means read it all.

It reminded me that I used to love poetry - or selected pieces anyway. I used to write some of my own, they're still around somewhere. What ended up putting me off the subject was limited self-education.

I read about the different forms of poetry, and I read about the rules. So much that I had first loved, the rhyme and rhythm of the language, began to be cast in doubt, to be cast as strictly amateur and naive. These were not details that they taught in high school, not mine anyway. I was a science student, so I never advanced to places where such rules are given any context. (I've grown since then, I understand better now that rules do have context.) So I left poetry alone as something obscure, something that I had no right to try and participate in because I didn't understand what was right and what was wrong.

Many years have passed and still an understanding of poetry eludes me. I read the pieces contributed to the thread linked above and some I enjoy and some I quickly skim over. I expect that, the same is true of most prose. But what is poetry? Are there rules? Is poetry something that anyone can attempt without feeling as if they are intruding on hallowed ground?

[HarryT]

Certainly there are "rules" for poetry, but you can choose to ignore them if you wish. But the skill in writing poetry is to make it fit a particular meter.

Eg, consider this fragment of Shakespeare (from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"):

Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries.
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

This may not at first glance look like poetry, but it is. It's "blank verse". Each line is in unrhymed "iambic pentameter", with 10 syllables and a stress pattern of "da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM". Blank verse comes close to the natural speaking rhythms of English but raises it above the ordinary without sounding artificial. Shakespeare was the master of blank verse.

Have a go at writing blank verse. It's challenging and fun.

[VydorScope]

Specific kinds of poetry have specific rules. There is no general set of rules that applies to the subject as a whole. Grammar does not even apply in the same way. Poetry is more free flowing and less structured then prose.

[crich70]

I do think it should rhyme if in the proper structure though I agree writer's like Shakespeare manage to have a rhythmic quality in their writing even without rhyme. I remember one 'poem' in a poetry contest I entered. It won the 1st prize though I couldn't see any rhyme or rhythmic qualities in it that identified it as such. My own entry was in rhymed couplets and was about Cupid. Oddly enough all I got was an honorable mention.

Cupid
Cupid travels both far and wide,
and from his arrows you cannot hide.

Cupid's bow is small but strong,
you may escape but not for long.

His arrows never miss their aim,
yet they never rend, tear, or maim.

He is never seen but is always near,
and weaves mans courage from his deepest fear.

He is small in stature, but big in power,
for in his presence love will flower.

-Chuck Brentner

The winning one read (IMO) more like an essay about someone walking about and what they saw on the trip.

[gmw]

Shakespeare is a good example, both of that blurred cross-over between poetry and prose, and of the rules that put me off tackling poetry for myself. I look at a piece like the example you gave and go quietly mad looking for the patterns until the words themselves are lost. I greatly admire those that can perform these lines to make the rhythm apparent without losing the meaning (not to mention the writer that created them to start with). But to construct such a thing for myself? That never really interested me.

I was always more interested in what I thought was the natural rhythm of what I was trying to write. The moment I tried to think about placing it all inside some external rules the words themselves would desert me.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by crich70

I do think it should rhyme if in the proper structure though I agree writer's like Shakespeare manage to have a rhythmic quality in their writing even without rhyme. I remember one 'poem' in a poetry contest I entered. It won the 1st prize though I couldn't see any rhyme or rhythmic qualities in it that identified it as such. My own entry was in rhymed couplets and was about Cupid. Oddly enough all I got was an honorable mention. [...]

I don't mind if a poem doesn't rhyme, but I like to be able to "see" the rhythm - and that's the problem I have with Shakespeare. Perhaps it's my Australian accent, but often it feels as if I have to push the words into unnatural contortions to get the rhythm. (And then I hear someone perform it and think: Ah, so that's how it's done! But as soon as I turn back to the words myself it all vanishes again.)

I liked your poem, but for me (who has openly admitted his ignorance on the subject ) the break in rhythm on the fourth pair lets it down.

[kennyc]

There are many forms of poetry -- rhymed, free verse, specific forms like sonnets, limericks, etc. etc. Even a very loose type called prose poetry which is very similar to flash (non-)fiction and certainly overlaps in type, style and authors.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

There are many forms of poetry -- rhymed, free verse, specific forms like sonnets, limericks, etc. etc. Even a very loose type called prose poetry which is very similar to flash (non-)fiction and certainly overlaps in type, style and authors.

What I am curious about, Kenny, is how much do you find yourself thinking about specific styles and rules when you write your poems?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gmw

What I am curious about, Kenny, is how much do you find yourself thinking about specific styles and rules when you write your poems?

I don't. I write primarily free verse, I focus mainly on the flow, syllables, stress, etc.

I avoid end-rhymes almost always as I think it more often than not makes the work less than it could be.

I do enjoy a bit of internal rhyming and assonance. Most of my work is narrative poetry.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't. I write primarily free verse, I focus mainly on the flow, syllables, stress, etc.

I avoid end-rhymes almost always as I think it more often than not makes the work less than it could be.

I do enjoy a bit of internal rhyming and assonance. Most of my work is narrative poetry.

Most of what I used to write used end-rhymes, and you're right, it can cause problems. The rhyming must always feel natural and that can be difficult to maintain over a poem of any length. And once you start rhyming you are almost obliged to keep it up because it becomes part of the rhythm you're trying to build.

One of the problems I have with free verse is finding the flow, finding the mood of the piece. Sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes it gives me trouble. Often I find that the writer's formatting and punctuation of such pieces (I'm not specifically talking about your work here) seems to pull me away from the flow, where I had always thought a piece should be constructed to aid the reader. Sometimes it is almost as if the reader is expected to ignore how the piece was formatted and somehow find the right flow for themselves. Any words of wisdom on that aspect?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by gmw

Most of what I used to write used end-rhymes, and you're right, it can cause problems. The rhyming must always feel natural and that can be difficult to maintain over a poem of any length. And once you start rhyming you are almost obliged to keep it up because it becomes part of the rhythm you're trying to build.

One of the problems I have with free verse is finding the flow, finding the mood of the piece. Sometimes it is obvious, but sometimes it gives me trouble. Often I find that the writer's formatting and punctuation of such pieces (I'm not specifically talking about your work here) seems to pull me away from the flow, where I had always thought a piece should be constructed to aid the reader. Sometimes it is almost as if the reader is expected to ignore how the piece was formatted and somehow find the right flow for themselves. Any words of wisdom on that aspect?

I don't really have any advice, because it must be what is 'natural' and 'natural' can vary from person to person. Even with my own work I sometimes come back and am thrown by the rhythm or structure.

Sometimes though it works and continues to work.

Certainly Prose Poetry lets the reader find their own way.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crich70

I do think it should rhyme if in the proper structure though I agree writer's like Shakespeare manage to have a rhythmic quality in their writing even without rhyme.

I must respectfully disagree with you. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for poetry to rhyme. It can't rhyme in many languages, due to grammatical inflections, and it's only the most simplistic types of English poetry that imposes rhymes upon the reader.

Meter is what differentiates poetry from prose, not rhyming.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I don't really have any advice, because it must be what is 'natural' and 'natural' can vary from person to person. Even with my own work I sometimes come back and am thrown by the rhythm or structure.

Sometimes though it works and continues to work.

Certainly Prose Poetry let's the reader find their own way.

Thanks. I had to ask. I guess it explains why poetry is sometimes a performance art. Sometimes the real nature of the poem only becomes apparent when read by someone that knows how. I had a great English teacher one year in high school, he could even read Chaucer so that high school kids (this one anyway) could find enjoyment in the music of it.

[Felicity Grope]

Rhymed poetry can sound like doggerel if done poorly. Read T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ and tell me that it’s not poetry.

I had the misfortune of spending 10 years studying poetry and did my doctoral on it and I can tell you one of the few definite things I learned: nobody can truly and clearly explain the rules.

It’s easy to say iambic pentameter and go ‘da dum da dum’ etc. but that’s just the theoretical ideal. Shakespeare’s perfect for talking theory. I just Googled for a sonnet at random and took the first I saw…

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 1
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 5
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come: 10
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 14

I guess that line 5 is probably pronounced ‘fixéd’ (two syllables) but how many syllables in line 6 or line 8? There are countless examples this where a line has eleven syllables (even taking into account the way we speak English now to the sixteenth century). They end with a soft feminine ending.

As for it being iambic, read the first line.

Is it natural to read is ‘let ME not TO the MARRiage OF true MINDS’? Sounds mechanical and false?

But that’s where the performance comes in and the fact that poets vary the metrics.
You’re probably read it more like: ‘let me NOT to the MARRiage of TRUE mind’ or some even some other variation. Just go listen to Richard Burton read verse. The man was a genius (especially his recordings of John Donne).

Different text books would describe that different ways. Some might say Shakespeare is inverting his iambs and others would have a totally different theory. Some of the best books on poetic theory don’t even believe in metrical feet as such and have better techniques for analysing the metrics.

All of which is my long winded way of saying that understanding techniques, forms, and theory are great. People interesting in poetry should do that and read the great poets (Shakespeare, Donne, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Eliot, bits of Pound, Wallace Stevens, Frank O'Hara...) Yet nothing – and I mean *nothing* – replaces having a good ear and knowing when something sounds right when it’s read aloud. Most bad poetry (indeed, most bad writing) simply jars the ear. Then again, and this is my personal opinion, modern poetry is currently dominated by an elite hostile to aesthetics (it’s why rhyme is mocked by some, though not me) who give it a bad reputation in the same way that too much modern art is made an easy target for mockery simply because of a few high profile conceptual artists.

Hmm. Written too much and straying off subject. Just wanted to add my thoughts…

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Felicity Grope

[...]Hmm. Written too much and straying off subject. Just wanted to add my thoughts…

And they are much appreciated. I am not sure whether hearing you say that after 10 years study "nobody can truly and clearly explain the rules" is reassuring to me or not. But I can understand and completely agree that bad poetry is that which jars the ear, because what drew me to poetry was the inherent music of it (when done well).

I love listening to Richard Burton (though you can probably guess, given my limited education on the subject of poetry, that I first heard him reading on Jeff Wayne's musical version The War of the Worlds).