Poetic Form

0 Comments

Tags:
  • Life
  • ,
  • Poetry

    Poetic Form


    --by PoetWithCancer, on Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:00 pm PST


         I often write sonnets (Shakespearian or Elizabethan, Petrachan or Italian, Spenserian, Donnean, Hopkinsian, and every other sonnet form.); rhymes royal; ballades; ballads; roundels; rondels; and even villanelles; as well as dozens of other forms. 

         I know and use the various types of meter, as well as non-metrical rhythmic flow when that fits the meaning and emotion of the poem.

         I am perfectly able to rhyme as I wish.

         When I don't use rhymes, it is because I think that particular poem is better without them.

         The  rhyming method I use most these days is called echo rhyming.  Which means that instead of placing the lines with the rhyming end words as adjacent lines, or as every other line, I have them appear a few lines apart, so that memory's ear hears the rhyming more subtly; or sometimes, without hearing the rhyming at all, nevertheless the reader or hearer simply senses the quality of music without pinpointing it. 

              In many poems, I use internal rhymes, which are rhyming words that do not appear at the ends of lines, but are scattered within the text of the poem (sometimes within a single line). 

              In many poems I also use half rhymes; as in this quotation from one of my poems:

                          "I dream that I may keep forever safe 
                          At least my memories from time's all-drowning wave." 

         The previous lines demonstrate not only half-rhyme, but a subtler use of language: I end each line with a fricative.

         Knowledge of the sonics and phonics of language can be used to add texture and subtle music to a poem.  Some aspects of the sonics of English are: fricatives, plosives, sibilants, dentals, gutterals, etc.  Repetitiions of these sounds are more subtle than alliteration or consonance.

              I also use off-rhymes; as in this excerpt from a poem of mine:

                       "I must swing back and forth from mood to mood,
                        Or else my mind would break and soon go mad. 
                        I dwell in days that range from highest joy to deepest hurt:
                        Life's agony and life's ecstasy gives meaning to my heart.
                        And as my days of life diminish and recede, 
                        I leave, behind me, legacies--in lines, of happy life and sad." 

         I seldom write fully classical poetry anymore--only around three or four a month--having been somewhat influenced by Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Walt Whitman, Alan Gisnberg, etc.  But as much as I love Walt Whitman and Carl Sandberg, nevertheless, my favorite American poets are Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, and Edgar Allen Poe.  I owe more to them.  But I still owe more to Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Fitzgerald, and Swinburne, Sara Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Sappho--the singing poets of the flute and lyre: I am at heart a lyric poet--a romantic poet--and always will be--despite occasional ventures into other kinds of poetic form and sound.


                              --by Michael LP, aka MLP
                                 aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
                                 Copyright (C) 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved

    Poem Comments

    (0)

    Please login or register

    You must be logged in or register a new account in order to
    leave comments/feedback and rate this poem.

    Login or Register

    Poetry is what is lost in translation.

    Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet.

    PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

    Title Comments
    Title Comments
    Happy Winter Solstice 1
    Seasonal Ring 1
    My Thanksgiving 0
    God's Word 1
    Under the Date Tree 1
    A Few More Times 1
    Divine and Diabolical World 0
    Summer-Brief 2
    Seasonal Ring 0
    Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
    Special Brian 0
    I Remember Brian 0
    Light of Life 0
    Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
    The Old, Old Words 0
    Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
    A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
    Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
    Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
    Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
    OT
    1
    Not Full 0
    Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
    Dying Dream 0
    Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
    Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
    The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
    Prime of Life 1
    Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
    Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
    Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
    Thanksgiving 0
    Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
    Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
    Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
    Deep Time 0
    Is There Anything Out There 2
    Classics in the Closet 0
    Nobody 0
    Feeling the Wind 0
    The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
    Happy Birthday, Brian 0
    The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
    Brian's Special Smile 0
    Broken Birth 0
    Missing Brian 0
    Focus: Today, Happy 0
    I Love You, Brian 0
    The Ways and the Words of You 1
    Stone Cry 0
    Amore Immortale 0
    Reality and Unreality 1
    Lyrical Life 1
    Easter 0
    Shakespeare's Birthday 0
    Friends During Need 1
    Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
    Moods 0
    I Was Worried About You 0
    Song of Life 2
    Me 1
    Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
    Your Money or Your Life 1
    Poesis 0
    A Last Look at the Moon 0
    Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
    Seventeen in the Past 1
    Clusters 1
    Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
    Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
    Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
    Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
    Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
    The Scream 3
    Life Is 8
    Following My Friend 3
    Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
    For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
    Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
    The Power to Create 4
    A Single Fortune Cookie 6
    The Meaning of Life 2
    Dreamless 3
    Prayers 3
    Lost Love 2
    I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
    Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
    All the Way with Part Way 2
    Loving, Living, and Dying 6
    Dreaming and Seeming 3
    Poem Prayer 2
    Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
    Super A, Abuelita1--Th
    ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
    2
    Wonderful Connie 1
    Someday-Dying 2
    Between Yes and No 3
    Love of Life 1
    Zappa the Magnificent 1
    In the Midst of Life 2
    Only One Death 1
    Real Illusion 1
    The Unknown 1
    My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
    No More Me 2
    Someone 2
    Leaving Life 1
    Precious Jade 2
    Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
    Using and Losing Time 1
    Loveless Life 2
    Good Life, Good Grief 1
    Dreamless 1
    Ontology versus Oncology 1
    Now Time 2
    No Present, No Future: All Past 3
    Hippocratic Hell 1
    First Light 2
    Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
    Death-Trap 0
    Broken 1
    Birthday Termination 1
    Moments 1
    First and Last Cry 1
    Love 2
    Final Fragility 1
    End of the World 1
    Tripping 1
    Seasonal Ring 1
    Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
    Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
    Enthusiasm: God Within 3
    Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
    Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
    Snow Man for a Low Man 0
    Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
    New Year, No Love 2
    Poetic Form 0
    Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
    About Me 1
    Live, Laugh, and Love 4
    Nothing Special 2
    Why a Writer Writes 2
    To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
    I and You: Unique and the Same 1
    Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
    Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
    Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
    Psyche 3
    My Bucket List (For Now) 4
    My Most SCARED Moments 2
    Children of the Stars 2
    Passing Life's Test 1
    Why More Now? 1
    Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
    Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
    Thursday's Hammer 1
    New Birthday 2
    Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
    To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
    Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
    Light for the Fight 2
    All That I Have 3
    Shine 2
    As If the Last 2
    Here Now 1
    All in Time 2
    The Exile 2
    Incurable and Terminal 4
    Tripping 2
    One More Tomorrow 1
    My Dash 4
    One of Two Is Stronger 1
    No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
    Friendship and Life 1
    Snow and Life 3
    Live Spelled Backwards 1
    Sarah Y 2
    To Fly 2
    My Cry 1
    Moment of Madness 2
    Fall From a Great Height 1
    A Memory 1
    Less Life; No Loving 2
    A Loser, True 2
    Time Stop 1
    Final Sleep 1
    Entre Enfer 1
    Flying Life 1
    One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
    Once 3
    The Haiku Form 2
    Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
    Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
    Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
    Light Locomotive 2
    Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
    Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
    Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
    High Coo 4
    From Night to Night 3
    Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
    Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
    Fear and Courage 1
    Death in Life 3
    Unknown Final Fate 3
    To Right a Poem 4
    Crab-Like Concealed 4
    Soon 2
    All in the Mind 3
    Ebony Shine 3
    On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
    Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
    Eqinox 4
    Feeling My Heart 5
    The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
    In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
    Lovers 7
    Art 5
    Things to Do 4
    Plane on Fire 3
    Ameliorator 5
    Thanksgiving 7
    Worlds of Light 24
    Failure's Fortress 13
    Song of Life (Original Version) 13