What Is “Poetry”? Why Do You Want To Write It? And in What Form?

by Tom Mach

A poem is defined as “a composition in verse, characterized by the imaginative treatment of experience and a condensed use of language that is more vivid and intense than ordinary prose.” A “verse,” on the other hand, is a “metrical composition.” That doesn’t help too much if you just arrived from planet Zorro and wanted to write a poem. Poets may disagree with me, but as far as I’m concerned, poetry is a written expression of one's personal experiences without the constraints of logical, sequenced thought as you might have in an article, essay, or story. The fact that it is so personal makes it difficult for me to judge whether a poem is “great” or “mediocre.” There is much about modern poetry I simply don't understand Even those poems published in literary magazines which have won prizes make me mutter,“What in the world is this s---!” (four-letter obscenity) It’s the same expression I have with much of modern art. Some people will stare in admiration at a canvas that looks as if someone had thrown paint against it and ordered his dog walk across it with painted sponges on its paws. I find a great deal of modern poetry is like modern art. Apparently, it holds a lot of meaning for its creator. A few will admire this “work of art” because it is supposed to be famous so they believe if they stare at it long enough, they’ll "get it." Others might really “get it” and are to be admired for being in tune with the creator’s mind. But then there are still others, like me, who don’t “get it,” and are afraid to say so because they will be thought of as being uncouth and uncivilized.

I think people write poetry for the same reason other people climb mountains: because it’s there. They realize readers won’t be crashing their door demanding to buy their poetry. Readers catching a plane aren’t going to be visiting airport book racks because they’d like nothing better than to entertain themselves with a book of obscure poetry. No, poets write poetry because there is something going off in their minds and they need to express it in words, regardless what others think of it. I am always uneasy when I am in a writers critique group where there is a mixture of prose and poetry writers. Invariably, someone will pass along her poem for us to critique, and invariably, I’m the only one in the group who dares to question what this poem means. The poet gets upset with my question and the others in the group glare at me for asking such a stupid question. I truly believe poets don't want to be honestly critiqued; I think they want to be admired for awaking their muse in some unique way.

Anyway, I did a little research on poetry forms, and http://www.peomofquotes.com/ came up with a total of 51. Perhaps there are more forms than these. When I was younger, I thought there were only two forms—rhyming and non-rhyming—and I had always assumed that when people talked about poems they were usually referring to the former type. But ever since Whitman came out with his Leaves of Grass, rhyming poetry fell into disfavor. Pick up any book of poetry and I guarantee that the non-rhyming type will vastly outshine the other.

Well, here are the 51 forms of poetry. In the future, I intend to get into some of these with examples of my own:

ABC Acrostic Ballad Ballade
Blank verse Bio Burlesque Canzone
Carpe diem Cinquain Classicism Couplet
Dramatic monologue Elegy Epic Epigram
Epitaph Epithalamium Free verse Ghazal
Haiku Horatian ode Iambic pentameter Idyll
Irregular ode Italian sonnet Lay Limerick
List Lyric Memoriam stanza Name
Narrative Ode Pastoral Petrarchan
Pindaric ode Quatrain Rhyme Rhyme royal
Romanticism Rondeau Senryu Sestina
Shakespearean Shape Sonnet Tanka
Terza Rima Verse Villanelle

Now it’s time for me to turn off my poetry mind and return to my prose mind. (I wonder if that side of my brain has room for both.)

---Tom Mach