01-27-2012, 04:20 PM
I do meter by rote. I get the pattern down and then just go. To me it's similar to a chord pattern in music. You get it going, then you quit thinking about it! Which means you must inundate yourself with similar formed poetry. I like William Blake's Songs for practicing the simpler forms. A few pages of Milton and you generally have blank verse down. Spenser and Shakespeare for sonnets.
There is "Evangeline" by Longfellow, should one ever want to write in dactylic hexameter.
Amazing Grace for common meter.
Whitman works for a modern epic, and a forerunner of Beat, and a good study for cadence,and non-iambic free verse, especially "Song of Myself".
Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" (mostly in iambs, and generally a four or a four and a half foot line, with a line of iambic trimeter thrown in as seems fitting) is a good reference for what the modernist were rebelling against ("Gareth and Lynette" from the "Idylls" is one of the best Love/Romance poems ever written).
There's of course Browning and his wife, you can take or leave them, I prefer the later (I suppose "My Last Duchess"). Coleridge is hard to ignore ("The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Kublai Khan", and Christabel") but I do not have that problem with Wordsworth. Of the younger three, I'd generally go with Byron, although "Ozymandias" should be required reading. Keats is arbitrary at best. For a Symbolist I'd go with Yeats. I think ""The Second Coming" is one of the best poems ever written. Dickinson was probably, only second to Coleridge, the greatest natural poet. Prufrock, of course must be dealt with, as not only an excellent example of iambic free verse (vers libre), but also in it's examination of man's alienation as he moves further from nature during industrialization, and how this weakens him. The Imagists I find bland, shallow, and pompous, although I am sure many would disagree with me (HD and pound are generally the preferred pair of that bunch). Ginsberg is the obvious successor to Whitman, and by far the best of the Beats. The eighteenth century poets, Pope (Heroic Couplet), et al, although bland, is a study in satire of the highest order, as well as quotability. They are also an excellent study about how poetry does not exists in a vacuum, as their volley's back and forth are most transparent. A study of all the aforementioned poets and their major works would render a nice overview of poetic form, style, and ideology. And while by no means inclusive, it at least offers a how-do-you-do, and would keep most people busy for a few weeks at least!
The Wiki article on poetry is very nice for general questions regarding poetic forms, meters, and the like, and as far as I can see is accurate, at least as accurate and as unbiased as one could hope for with such a topic. If you wish to go beyond that scope, you might actually have to read a book or a hundred (an unfamiliar concept these days, but back in the time when Underwood was state of the art, and there was no white out, it is what we did. I know, it is quite primitive, but there is a certain visceral quality to the feel and smell of an old book. I know I quite enjoyed at almost a sensual level, reading the "Biographia Literaria". Coleridge really was quite brilliant! Try a taste of his Shakespearean criticism sometime.). Well, that was more than I meant to say, but when I get going, there just seems to be no good stopping point.
Dale
There is "Evangeline" by Longfellow, should one ever want to write in dactylic hexameter.
Amazing Grace for common meter.
Whitman works for a modern epic, and a forerunner of Beat, and a good study for cadence,and non-iambic free verse, especially "Song of Myself".
Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" (mostly in iambs, and generally a four or a four and a half foot line, with a line of iambic trimeter thrown in as seems fitting) is a good reference for what the modernist were rebelling against ("Gareth and Lynette" from the "Idylls" is one of the best Love/Romance poems ever written).
There's of course Browning and his wife, you can take or leave them, I prefer the later (I suppose "My Last Duchess"). Coleridge is hard to ignore ("The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Kublai Khan", and Christabel") but I do not have that problem with Wordsworth. Of the younger three, I'd generally go with Byron, although "Ozymandias" should be required reading. Keats is arbitrary at best. For a Symbolist I'd go with Yeats. I think ""The Second Coming" is one of the best poems ever written. Dickinson was probably, only second to Coleridge, the greatest natural poet. Prufrock, of course must be dealt with, as not only an excellent example of iambic free verse (vers libre), but also in it's examination of man's alienation as he moves further from nature during industrialization, and how this weakens him. The Imagists I find bland, shallow, and pompous, although I am sure many would disagree with me (HD and pound are generally the preferred pair of that bunch). Ginsberg is the obvious successor to Whitman, and by far the best of the Beats. The eighteenth century poets, Pope (Heroic Couplet), et al, although bland, is a study in satire of the highest order, as well as quotability. They are also an excellent study about how poetry does not exists in a vacuum, as their volley's back and forth are most transparent. A study of all the aforementioned poets and their major works would render a nice overview of poetic form, style, and ideology. And while by no means inclusive, it at least offers a how-do-you-do, and would keep most people busy for a few weeks at least!
The Wiki article on poetry is very nice for general questions regarding poetic forms, meters, and the like, and as far as I can see is accurate, at least as accurate and as unbiased as one could hope for with such a topic. If you wish to go beyond that scope, you might actually have to read a book or a hundred (an unfamiliar concept these days, but back in the time when Underwood was state of the art, and there was no white out, it is what we did. I know, it is quite primitive, but there is a certain visceral quality to the feel and smell of an old book. I know I quite enjoyed at almost a sensual level, reading the "Biographia Literaria". Coleridge really was quite brilliant! Try a taste of his Shakespearean criticism sometime.). Well, that was more than I meant to say, but when I get going, there just seems to be no good stopping point.Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.