How we choose to write.

[wasellajam]

What influences how you choose to write? If the poem does't immediately choose it's form, what makes you lean one way or another?

My current dilemma: Tetrameter comes so easily while pentameter is a struggle. Why? It's often only one word difference. But that's not my question.

If one form comes easily and another is a struggle which do you choose (leaving aside for now, if possible, which suites the poem best)? Is it preferable to have the ideas rush out or to stretch and search and shuffle through your brain to satisfy the one that's harder for you? I'm thinking long run. Sure it's nicer to have 3 poems than one but what do you think might bring you to your goal of being a poet sooner?

Unless there's a challenge - imposed by self or others - the idea behind the poem really does seem to choose the form... but indirectly.  If it's a simple idea, A then B or just A slightly elaborated, it tends to be a haiku.  If it's a simple idea about which much can be said, it tends to be tetrameter; if the idea has twists, pentameter.  The thing is, the idea often comes with a first line which then sets the meter for the rest.  If I can jot down that first line when the idea strikes, it's sometimes enough to get the whole thing going... if I can also remember the frame of mind that made the idea seem to be important, amusing, or just make sense.

Beyond that, some forms have expected kinds of ideation:  natural beauty for haiku, human nature for senryu, for example.  Sonnets for romance (though sometimes of an ironic or subverting sort).  And, usefully, Shakespearean for that short but sharp turn at the end and Petrarchan for the more balanced question-and-answer.

And sometimes the idea insists on changing form after I start:  the sonnet's done after 12 lines, or insists on being a column of heroic couplets.  In prose I tend to write long, academic sentences unless I brutally ten-dash-one* them, so my default is pentameter.

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* AFP 10-1, Guide to Air Force Writing (back in the day), demanded short sentences, subject-verb-object, and was observed principally in the breach.

Thanks so much for such a thorough reply. For me, this:


" If it's a simple idea about which much can be said, it tends to be tetrameter; if the idea has twists, pentameter."

So, is tetrameter discouraging twists? Is it not leaving room for a deepening of an idea that started out simple? Do you think a poem can start in tetrameter them switch midway?

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I think form and meter are irrelevant. I don’t know why we persist with them. It’s like using a slide rule or an abacus because it’s tradition. Or using a drafter instead of autocad. It is a form of barely excusable barbarism. We might as well be eschewing tomatoes and avocados, because they’re new fangled. Or riding horses.

The idea that regular meter is a good idea is utterly devoid of any merit. It’s like saying that GPUs are good, as long as they are marchant calculators (something I learnt about from Feynman’s books. I wasn’t born in the 20s).

So basically, I think any form that combines metre a little irregularly is good. Regular metre is like the baby shark song, rage inducing. After that, it’s what you’re trying to say, as long as it’s interesting.

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The objective of poetry is to say interesting things in a nice way, ultimately to create beauty and joy. And there are many ways of doing this, but the main thing is that you should surprise the reader. Regular form and meter is the opposite of that.

Love this response! Personally, I think there can be beauty, joy and surprise within any form if the poet is good enough but I hear you. All art exists in the mind of the perceiver and when something turns you off it just does.