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Here’s a quick and simple definition: Formal verse is the name given to rhymed poetry that uses a strict meter (a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables). This two-line poem by Emily Dickinson is formal verse because it rhymes and its lines contain the same number of syllables (ten) with the same stress pattern of unstressed and ...
May 9, 2016 · For my money—mind you, I am a poet, so that’s not much—writing in form is one of the best ways for poets to practice technique. Even if you have no desire to be a “formal” poet (and no one says you must choose a side!), the skills you learn by grappling with form are skills that will serve you well in free verse.
Why “formal” verse? This blog is dedicated to the proposition that not all poetry is equal – indeed, that not all of it is even poetry. “Poetry” went off the rails in the 20th century for a variety of reasons – accidentally? suicidally? – but it is slowly getting back on track. “The Death of Chatterton” – the poet died at 17 ...
Poets draw from whatever corner they’ve learned from or that they prefer: maybe a lineage of poets they identify with, their teachers, poems that shaped who they are, or poems they aspire to write. Because of the rich history of poetry, the original art form if we think of storytelling as the oldest art, there are too many possible ways to do poetry to list.
Jul 7, 2022 · This is not to say that poetry, particularly formal/classical narrative poetry, cannot be prosaic, but even then, within the artificial limits imposed by rhythm, rhyme and form, the poet arranges the words in a way that “conjures” or calls up from thin air an image, a story, an idea and/or a feeling in a way that metaphorically, at least, can justifiably be described as “magical.”
Jan 8, 2020 · Photo: Nick Fewings / Unsplash For most of my writing life, my poetry has been free verse. It seems to go well with my style, which often has a conversational tone. In my poetry workshop class in ...
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Its opposite, strictly, is free verse. Many poets, however, can and do operate in both free and formal ways in their work, and sometimes within the one poem. A classic example of this is T S Eliot's 'The Waste Land', which moves between blank verse and free verse, and shifts in and out of rhyming. Felix Dennis writes almost entirely in formal ...