Choosing a Form

[Todd]

I know this answer will seem vague, but you choose the form that best represents what you're trying to acheive with the poem. If a Sonnet says it best you go Sonnet. Most of the time though I start from a place of comfort (for good or bad) which means free verse. The main issue for me in starting that way is I don't want to be so focused on the form that the content suffers. However, once I'm a draft or two in and I start to revise I may decide that another form conveys better. There are other times where conforming to a specific form my make you come up with phrasing that you never would have stumbled on. If Leanne hadn't had us write Kyrielles I never would have come up with this phrasing:

Each day I sit in asphalt haze
a brake light death of small delays

Which is more elegant than where the free verse was taking me.

Different forms cause you to approach the material differently. I read a large biography on Howard Hughes and was fascinated by his memo to his staff on how to open a can of peaches.

I started with a Rubia called Peaches. I wasn't happy with how it sounded. What I was trying to express wasn't coming through. I moved to a free verse structure (to try to capture the speaker's (Hughes's) voice and it felt more right. I think that's the key what feels more right. What has more clarity, more power.

Just some thoughts,

Todd