The Everything Writing Poetry Book (15 page)

P
oetry can take a number of different forms. Some forms are long and some short. Some follow rules and others are free flowing. Though poems can take many shapes, there are four main categories under which all poems can be classified:
narrative, lyric, open form
, and
closed form
. Studying the forms songs take will also help you in your poetic pursuits.

Narrative Poetry I: Epic and Ballad

The narrative poem, among the oldest forms of literature, can be as long as any modern novel. But it can also be relatively short, perhaps contained on a single page. The key requirement of this form is that it must contain a narrative—a story told by a narrator. The first two forms you'll learn about are the
epic
and the
ballad
, which originated with preliterate or semiliterate people. These works were memorized and then performed at celebrations and other gatherings.

The Epic

The epic is an ancient form that is rarely used nowadays. However, it used to be a popular method of recording history and communicating within societies. Being a narrative, the epic borrows some of the techniques of storytelling, including plot, character, setting, point of view, and so on.

•
Plot:
a sequence of events taking place within the narrative

•
Character:
the person whose story is followed throughout the narrative

•
Setting:
the time and place of the narrative

•
Point of view:
the perspective through which the narrative is told

One of the few successful English epics written in the classical convention is John Milton's
Paradise Lost
. Composed about 350 years ago, the poem still inspires many to attempt the epic form or to write a response to the poem itself. One such response is Zachary Chartkoff's “Syn,” part of which follows:

In the valley; before the factotum
of God's riot with their rosy, hallowed
slaughter machine; before panzered, darksome
Morning Star's first barrage, she up, rambled
out of battle, leaving her night-fitted
father's yowling machines and the valley's
kilns and grogshops burning. Which one quoted
poorly rendered handbooks that claim furies
do not drive their greedy mouths like we do?
Her name is Syn. This is not Patriarch's
poem; death did not come in the Hebrew
form of woman. Syn left tiny hoof marks
over the dunes; a winged pear, green as wine
held up before callowed sky's scythe sunshine
.

Printed with permission of the author
.

The Ballad

The narrative ballad comes in two forms: the
folk ballad
, typically composed and sung by people with little formal education, and the
literary ballad
, composed by more educated writers in imitation of the folk ballad. Aside from the difference in education levels, the main difference between the forms is that the literary ballad is not composed to be sung. Other than that, both forms share the trait of telling a story, and both tend to focus on subjects such as unrequited love, disaster, murder, and magical or otherworldly events. Coleridge's “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” discussed in Chapter 4, is an example of a literary ballad written about a strange and supernatural ship voyage.

The ballad, being a popular song, is organized simply. Its lines, divided into
quatrains
(four-line stanzas), follow an 8-6-8-6 syllable pattern. You also have your choice of rhyme schemes: You can rhyme the alternating lines in an ABAB pattern, or you can simply rhyme lines two and four in an XAXA pattern.

Consider the Scottish folk ballad, “Bonny Barbara Allan,” which is several centuries old. The subject matter of the poem is unrequited love, and this leads to the deaths of both characters. The characters themselves are not greatly developed, and the dialogue is not always introduced with tags (he said, she said) as in a polished story. The focus is on the events themselves, and on the final twist that leads Barbara Allan to her own end.

It was in and about the Martinmas time
¹
,
When the green leaves were a-falling,
That Sir John Græme, in the West Country,
Fell in love with Barbara Allan
.

He sent his men down through the town,
To the place where she was dwelling:
“O haste and come to my master dear,
If ye be Barbara Allan.”

O slowly, slowly rose she up,
To the place where he was lying,
And when she drew the curtain by:
“Young man, I think you're dying.”

“O it's I'm sick, and very, very sick,
And it's all for Barbara Allan.”
“O the better for me ye's
²
never be
Though your heart's blood were a-spilling.”

“O don't you recall, young man,” she said,
“When the red wine ye were a-filling,
That ye made the toasts go round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?”

He turned his face unto the wall
And death was with him dealing:
“Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allan.”

And slowly, slowly, raise she up,
And slowly, slowly left him,
And sighing said she could not stay,
Since death of life had reft him
.

She had not gone a mile or two,
When she heard the dead-bell ringing,
And every stroke that the dead-bell gave,
It cried, “Woe to Barbara Allan!”

“O mother, mother, make my bed!
O make it soft and narrow!
Since my love died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow.”

¹
November 11

²
you shall

Narrative Poetry II: Drama and Monologue

Like the epic,
drama
relies on many of the elements of storytelling, including plot, character, and setting. The characters are usually presented with a problem to be solved, or they may have a conflict among themselves that needs to be dealt with. The purpose of the drama is to see how the characters resolve the issues they face.

The Drama

Unlike the epic, which is usually performed by one singer, the drama has several actors who perform the roles of the characters. The interplay between the characters—often in the form of dialogue—can create many complexities in the verse form. For instance, in
Romeo and Juliet
, Shakespeare wrote the first dialogue exchange between Romeo and Juliet in sonnet form:

Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take
.

Dramatic Poetry

Many poets create dramatic narrative poetry by having two or more characters exchange dialogue within a poem. The characters, however, do not perform onstage, nor is the poem meant to be acted out. The ballad form relies on dialogue and drama to present its narrative.

An example of a dramatic poem using dialogue is Robert Frost's “Home Burial.” This poem renders a brief but emotionally powerful scene between a husband and a wife who have lost a child. The tension mounts between the characters as the wife becomes disgusted and horrified by the husband's growing anger and violence. The poem actually ends in mid-speech, with the husband menacing the wife. In this way, the dialogue adds to the suspense of the poem.

The Monologue

The
monologue
is closely related to the drama. The monologue, though, has one trait that distinguishes it. While two or more actors perform the drama, and the point of view disappears behind the action on the stage, the monologue involves only one speaker.

The speaker of the monologue can be addressing an audience or can simply be speaking within his or her own mind. You have already looked at a portion of such a monologue in Chapter 5, Robert Browning's “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” (page 58). Here is another portion of this poem:

Gr-r-r—there go, my heart's abhorrence!
    Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
    God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
    Oh, that rose has prior claims—
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
    Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together;
    Salve tibi!
¹
I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
    Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
    Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
    What's the Latin name for “parsley”?
What's the Greek name for “swine's snout”?

¹
Latin for “Hail to thee!”

You might have noticed some words set down in italics—these are prayers or bits of dialogue that seem ordinary but that contrast sharply with what the speaker is actually thinking. As an exercise, write a monologue of your own in which the character's actions and spoken words similarly contrast with his thoughts.

Lyric Poetry

The word
lyric
is derived from the word
lyre
, an ancient musical instrument used throughout Europe and the Middle East. Lyrics were the words written to accompany the music of the lyre and therefore were originally songs. Nowadays, a lyric poem is considered a short but intense moment of insight set down by the poet.

The lyric does not have to contain a narrative, though it may, and it does not have to be long, though it may stretch for several lines. But the lyric should focus on an experience that is unique to the vision of the poet. For the sake of discussion, you can classify many—but not all—lyric poems by the experiences they contain. Three main categories of lyrics are those that center on an image, those that center on an emotion, and those that center on an argument.