When to Embrace Form and When to Throw it On the Ground

Welcome to your weekly edition of: 

Monday Musings!

Note: Kindly disregard that it is currently Tuesday. My bad.

Today's topic will be....

Form:

To smash? Or not to smash? That is the question.

Or at least, that's the question today. For starters, I want you all to know that I renamed this blog post to quote Andy Samberg so I could include this meme:

GIF via Giphy.com
Find the YouTube video here if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Full disclosure: it's ridiculously weird. And slightly inappropriate. 

No shame. So, if you're like me, the idea of trying to write a sonnet makes you act like this:

Photo via Giphy.com
Yes, you can expect Andy Samberg's face to pop up (not so) sporadically throughout this post.

As you can imagine, the "Forms of Poetry" class I was required to take in college was a struggle. Some people have what it takes to write in form, and some people want to throw it on the ground. And then stomp on it. Hard. (As you may have guessed, I'm the latter.) My dear friend Emily is the former---it's pretty much a super power. No, seriously, it's that impressive.

Now, maybe that is because I couldn't write a sonnet even if Shakespeare was tap-dancing iambic-pentameter in my head, but I really, truly think that the ability to write good poetry in any form is difficult. Of course, some may say that the ability to write good poetry at all is difficult. However, I'd like to point out that there is a helluva lot more good free verse floating around this world currently than sonnets, so there. It's probably because people view free verse as a freaking free-for-all (Which it's not. Even if the name leads you on a bit.) while sonnets take all your brain power for the week to assemble.

So here's the rub: when do you go down with the ship, and when do you throw it on the ground?

I'm not sure if I have a hard and fast answer (after all, that's why I'm musing about it in the first place), but I do have some experience in this area, as a struggling form-poet. 

I love form. I think it's absolutely gorgeous, and I am in awe of successful form poems. However, I primarily write in free verse or I randomly count syllables (never accents) within my lines for the hell of it. My theory used to be that you have to be really really brilliant at writing in a form to be able to break it properly, but I'm not entirely sure if that's the case anymore.

Lately I'm more of a mind to let the poem break itself if it wants to. Try a form, and if it feels like someone is holding a pillow over your inner muse, throw it on the ground. 

Let Andy show you the way.

Throw it hard, if you're writing something like a broken sonnet. If you're just shaking up some end rhyme, maybe throw it on some pillows. Which brings me to my next point: form is only a straight-jacket on your poem if you let it be. Rules were made because someone knew they'd be broken, and forms are no exception. The brilliant thing about poetry is that we can pick and choose which rules to follow. Free verse was created because someone said "Screw You, Canon!" and dove in headfirst. Do that guy proud and do your own thang.

You go, little dip-dyed Kitten. You do you.
(Photo via This Pinterest User)

Here's a list of some forms to try and some links to help you get you started:

1. The Sonnet - don't panic. Emily is totally here to talk you through this one!

2. The Villanelle - don't let the villain-sounding bit scare you, these poems are really quite beautiful.

3. The Pantoum - one of my favorite forms (yes, yes, I do have them!).

4. The Sestina - these are actually pretty fun to write---what makes them hard is the tendency to fall into poetic gibberish. 

5. The Haiku - ahh, an oldie but a goodie---be sure to check out the modern haikus for an interesting read.

6. The Rondeau - now here's one you probably haven't head of before! Imagine a Sonnet and a Villanelle had a French baby. That's a Rondeau. 

Be sure to take a look at what other poets are doing with those forms. You'll be surprised how many are free within their structure and how many break the rules in subtle ways. Sometimes a broken form is barely noticeable, sometimes it's super in your face. Try a little bit of everything and just go with it. The great thing about poems is that you can draft them a million times until you get it right. 

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: write six poems, one in each form listed above. Post your favorite in our comments section and see how cool it is that everyone does something a little different with the same starting point. 

To conclude, don't fear the "broken" form. It's not a failed poem, it's a failed sonnet, or villanelle, or whatever you intended it to be. Stick with it until you think your head might blow up, and then let go of what you want your poem to be and let it become the poem you were meant to write. Sometimes writing works in mysterious ways like that. If you get too far into your own head, you forget that the ingenuity of the turn doesn't require iambic pentameter: it just requires a poet willing to take a risk on something.

Be that poet, padawan. 

Had to get one last meme in here. 
(GIF via Giphy.com)