08-10-2016, 11:46 AM
I don't think location is any longer a problem, with the internet. I live in New Zealand, but I'm currently enrolled in an online poetry course with the University of Iowa. We're examining ways of portraying mass death, destruction, etc, by reading Walt Whitman's Civil War writings. Nothing could be further from my culture, yet it's easy to be a part of it.
I've written in forms such as ghazal, rubiyat, sonnets, cinquain, haiku, haibun, kyrielle, limerick, pantoum, qasida, quatern, rispetto, rondeau, tanka, slijo, villanelle - all those forms come from a different culture than mine. Oh, Conachlonn too. Terza rima, Sapphic Ode, Rhyme Royale, even a Shanzai, rondel, rime couee, sestina, dizain, Madrigal, ballade, rictameter, aubade, and of course cento. I've left all the English forms out, as I take it they would be considered my 'culture'.
Waiata I didn't include, because I claim Maori as part of my culture.
I don't say I can write in these forms as easily as those poets whose culture that formed them - but each time I learned more about that culture as I studied the different form. In that way I think poetry breaks down barriers between cultures.
I've written in forms such as ghazal, rubiyat, sonnets, cinquain, haiku, haibun, kyrielle, limerick, pantoum, qasida, quatern, rispetto, rondeau, tanka, slijo, villanelle - all those forms come from a different culture than mine. Oh, Conachlonn too. Terza rima, Sapphic Ode, Rhyme Royale, even a Shanzai, rondel, rime couee, sestina, dizain, Madrigal, ballade, rictameter, aubade, and of course cento. I've left all the English forms out, as I take it they would be considered my 'culture'.
Waiata I didn't include, because I claim Maori as part of my culture.
I don't say I can write in these forms as easily as those poets whose culture that formed them - but each time I learned more about that culture as I studied the different form. In that way I think poetry breaks down barriers between cultures.