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from: http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/ballad.shtml

Poetic Forms: The Ballad

by Conrad Geller

Traditional poetic forms have had a bad time of it since Walt Whitman set off the free verse revolution about a hundred and fifty years ago. Critics and teachers have learned to sniff at rhyme and rhythm in contemporary poetry as "doggerel," or, worst epithet of all, "greeting-card verse." Too many young poets, mistakenly seizing on the idea that free verse is an art without rules, have been encouraged to reject any form as an encumbrance to the pristine expression of their feelings.

Yet the best poets of modern times -- Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, Dylan Thomas among them -- never abandoned the poetic traditions of English verse. Some of their best work is strictly traditional, and when they turned to the demanding discipline of free verse, they did so with the advantages of a thorough apprenticeship in their craft.

If you are a developing poet you, too, might be well advised to look at traditional forms. Even if you end up with free verse, as most contemporary poets do, your time spent playing with the forms of poetry will be a grounding in the discipline of language, which, after all, is the raw material of all poetry: "The right words in the right order."

The oldest, in some ways the easiest, and surely the most enduring of all poetic forms is the ballad. Ballads, the main vehicle for stories and songs, go back into the mists of prehistory, before English was even recognizably English:

In Scarlet Town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin'
Made every lad cry wellaway,
And her name was Barbara Allen.
Nearly as well known is the tale of Sally Brown, who tricked a serial killer into an unguarded moment, enabling her to push him off a cliff into the sea:

"Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
Lie there, lie there," said she.
"Six little maidens you've drownded here,
Go keep them company!"
As these old examples show, the traditional ballad stanza has four lines, alternating between four iambic beats (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM), and three beats (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM) per line. The second and fourth lines rhyme. (In older English, "Allen" was pronounced "Ellen," so the second and fourth lines of the first example would have rhymed for the original singers.) This form, four beats and three, by the way, harks back to the seven-beat line in which the earliest heroic tales like Beowulf (about 750 AD) were composed.

Ballads appear all through English literature. Most famous is S. T. Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner:

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?"
Coleridge, of course, like most poets, uses the basic form only as a framework. Sometimes he expands the stanza to six lines or more:

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
Sometimes he uses internal rhyme in the odd-numbered lines:

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free:
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea
Oscar Wilde, in The Ballad of Reading Gaol, about a murderer waiting for execution, skillfully makes the six-line stanza his standard:

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Probably no writer used the six-line adaptation of the ballad form more vigorously or delightfully than Lewis Carroll in The Walrus and the Carpenter:

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
Can you do as well? With practice, you can make this four or six-line form a powerful vehicle for your poetry. If you have a story to tell, especially if it's a gruesome or funny one, you might try the ballad as your form. You are likely to find, to your pleasure and surprise, it gives just the tone you need.

~~~~

from: http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/sonnet.shtml

Poetic Forms: The Sonnet

by Conrad Geller

The sonnet is like the legendary camel which, having put its nose into the tent to keep it warm, soon makes himself at home. Originally an Italian import, it has become the most popular, almost the standard form in English, with thousands of published examples produced by practically every major and minor poet since before Shakespeare.

Everyone should write at least one sonnet in a lifetime.

Sonnets are fourteen-line poems, period. They exist in every line length, with every rhyme scheme imaginable, or with no rhyme scheme at all. The more or less standard sonnets, however, fall into two types: Italian and Shakepearean.

Of these, let's work with the more popular, more elaborate, and at least formally more difficult form. The Italian sonnet was popularized by the Italian poet Petrarch in the fourteenth century, when he wrote a whole bunch of them about his hopeless love for Laura (she seems to have been married). Hopeless lovers have imitated him ever since.

Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnets are usually written with a long line of five beats (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). They break down into one eight-line stanza, that tells an experience or expresses a thought or feeling, and a six-line stanza, that contrasts with, resolves, or comments on the first part.

The eight-line stanza, called an octave, uses two rhyme words. The first line rhymes with the fourth, fifth, and eighth lines; the second with the third, sixth, and seventh. Confused? Here is the octave of a sonnet by the best sonneteer of the twentieth century, Edna St. Vincent Millay:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
See? "Why" rhymes with "sigh," "reply," and "cry"; "lain" rhymes with "rain," "pain," and "gain."

So now she has expressed her feeling (Loneliness? Regret?) In the six-line finale (the sestet), she is going to make the feeling more vivid still by resorting to a comparison of her situation with that of a tree in winter which, cold and abandoned, seems to have only a faint, nonspecific sense of loss:

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Note the rhyming here is "tree" (line 1) rhyming with "me" (line 5); "one" (line 2) rhyming (imperfectly) with "gone" (line 4); and "before" (line 3) rhyming with "more" (line 6). We could represent that using the scheme abcbac. Actually, that's trickier than most sestets. The usual is either abcabc, ababab or, if the poet wants a summarizing last two lines, ababcc.

Does that seems too hard? I estimate that probably a million sonnets are written nowadays worldwide, by poets young and old, of all possible levels of skill. Why not you?

A bigger question is, why bother? Well, you can't know how satisfying, how pleasant, and even how liberating the sonnet can be until you try one. Millay, in a sonnet about writing a sonnet, puts it best, as usual:

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon--his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years, or our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more than less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from: http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/triolet.shtml

Poetic Forms: The Triolet

by Conrad Geller

In the Golden Age of lyric poetry, about five hundred years ago, as the French Middle Ages slipped toward the Renaissance, poetic forms tended to become more and more tests of raw skill, like the NBA's Slam-Dunk Contest. A poet needed as many as thirty-six rhyme words for some of the more monstrous concoctions. Compounding the difficulties were the riddles, puns, and acrostics that were supposed to be imbedded in the verses.

Most of those poetic types are mercifully only museum pieces now, as more modern poets began to emphasize imagery and feeling over technique. But there is one of those old French forms, the oldest and simplest of them all, that deserves a look from the contemporary poet: the triolet.

Going back at least to the thirteenth century, triolets are short, usually witty poems, just perfect for tucking into a box of candy or some flowers. Its name comes from the repetition of the key line three times (French "tri"). A similar form, the rondeau, means "round poem" and also refers to the key feature of repetition (we all know, "Row, row, row your boat", which is still referred to as a "round").

Of the triolet's eight lines, the first line is used three times and the second line is repeated once. So the requirement for rhyme words is easy, and the eight lines really come down to only five different ones--easier than it seems at first. Let's look at an example (Triolets, though very popular during several periods on the Continent, have not abounded in English poetry, so my examples are coming immodestly from my own pen.):

It's best to begin a triolet with a statement or observation, something like this:

You have to write a triolet
If you would make your name immortal.
The third line rhymes with the first:

To get a form that's fit and set
Then you repeat the first line, so the first four lines are

You have to write a triolet
If you would make your name immortal.
To get a form that's fit and set;
You have to write a triolet.
Next, write another line that rhymes with the first line. Here you should change the viewpoint or add another idea:

From free verse all you ever get
(now a rhyme with the second line):

Is just another yawn or chortle.
You are finished, except for repeating the first two lines. Here is the whole simple poem:

You have to write a triolet
If you would make your name immortal.
To get a form that's fit and set.
You have to write a triolet.
From free verse all you ever get
Is just another yawn or chortle.
You have to write a triolet
If you would make your name immortal.
Here are a couple more, more conventionally on the subject of love:

I loved you, and will love again
If all the circumstance is right.
I am the faithfullest of men.
I loved you, and will love again.
Just re-create, by word or pen,
That lake, those trees, that starry night
I loved you. I will love again
If all the circumstance is right.
I feel with wonder and surprise
The hard, hard softness of your touch;
Then your bright, swift, and careful eyes
I feel with wonder and surprise.
Enough, for rage is sure to rise
If once again, and then not much,
I feel with wonder and surprise
The hard, hard softness of your touch.
Simple but elegant, isn't it? And just the thing to show the recipient of your gift or card that you cared enough to play with language just for him/her. Sure you can do it.

~~~~~~~~

from: http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/villanelle.shtml

Poetic Forms: The Villanelle

by Conrad Geller

One traditional form of poetry that can be fun to write, is technically easy compared to the most challenging forms, and often surprises the poet with its twists and discoveries, is the villanelle.

Villanelles have been around for at least three hundred years. Its name derives from the Italian villa, or country house, where noblemen went to refresh themselves, perhaps dally with the locals, and imagine that they were back to nature. It seems to have grown out of native songs, with their frequent refrains and complex rhyming.

The first thing you need for a villanelle is a pair of rhyming lines that are the heart of your meaning. Here are the two key lines from The House on the Hill, by E. A. Robinson:

They are all gone away
There is nothing more to say.
Now put an unrhymed line between these two, to make a three-line stanza:

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
The next stanza begins with a line that rhymes with the basic couplet, a line that rhymes with the middle line you added, and (this is the key to this form) the first line of the couplet repeated:

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
The next stanza has a first line rhyming with "away" and "say," followed by a line rhyming with "still," and then the second line of the couplet repeated:

Nor is there one today
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
You see how the two lines of the base couplet become more and more meaningful with each repetition. That is why the success of the form depends so much on the careful selection of the couplet.

The poem then goes on this way for a total of five three-line stanzas, alternating the two base lines, and ends with a sixth stanza that adds the second line of the stanza one more time:

Why is it then we stray
Around the shrunken sill?
They are all gone away.
And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

Beautiful,as the gloomy atmosphere deepens with each repetition.

Here is another, much lighter villanelle by a more contemporary poet, Sondra Ball. Her subject is the villanelle itself, and the form is strictly adhered to, though she does allow herself some irregular rhymes:

Musical and sweet, the villanelle,
like light reflected in a gentle rhyme,
moves to the ringing of a silver bell,
its form creating soft and tender spells.
Like the singing of distant silver chimes,
musical and sweet, the villanelle

flows through the heart, and builds a magic spell
from sunlight and from shadows, and, sublime,
moves to the ringing of a silver bell.

It never arcs into the sharp loud yell
of vast pipe organs. Soft its climb.
Musical and sweet, the villanelle,

like a tiny and translucent shell
catching sunlight in the summer time,
moves to the ringing of a silver bell.

Soft and gentle, tender and so frail,
like light pouring through petals of the lime,
musical and sweet, the villanelle
moves to the ringing of a silver bell.

(reprinted by permission

Notice, too, that in this form poets can choose longer or shorter lines. Robinson's poem has three beats to a line, while Ball's has the more traditional five (ta-DUM, ta-DUM, ta-DUM, ta-DUM, ta-DUM).

This hardy and flexible poetic form has had a resurgence in the last hundred years. Probably the best of the poems produced during this time is Dylan Thomas's reflection on the death of his father, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. And for good measure it's probably one of the best poems of the twentieth century of any kind, period:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Though Wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Conrad Geller's Series on Poetic Forms:

The Ballad - http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/ballad.shtml

The Sonnet - http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/sonnet.shtml

The Triolet - http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/triolet.shtml

The Villanelle - http://www.writing-world.com/poetry/villanelle.shtml

Copyright © 2001 Conrad Geller
Conrad Geller ( cgeller "at" post.harvard.edu) grew up in Boston and received his education at the Boston Latin School and Harvard. He has taught in Massachusetts and New York and spent a Fulbright year teaching in London. He has published widely on literature and education. Currently he heads the Committee on Public Doublespeak of the National Council of Teachers of English. His poetry has appeared in many publications, including Bibliophilos, Insight, and Burning Cloud Review.

 


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