16.15: Poetic Structure, Part I
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard
Rigorous structure in poetic form
is commonly pointed at when we declare
Poems have meters and rhymes, as the norm.
Yet words without patterns can roar like a storm
So why pay attention, why study with care
Rigorous structure in poetic form?
Just set it aside, surrender the gorm
(means “alertness”, a quite-handy rhyme I put there)
Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm.
Let some of it go, perhaps. Let it transform
beyond all the rhyming. Deny, if you dare:
Rigorous structure in poetic form
Okay, you can maybe keep some of it warm
Those toasty iambics by which you might swear:
Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm.
This episode text I wrote: does it inform?
Will all be confused when this couplet doth air?
“Rigorous structure in poetic form:
Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm.”
Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. The villanelle above was the first—and hopefully last—ever composed by Howard Tayler. Yes, the Writing Excuses tagline is a haiku. No, Howard did not know that when he wrote it in 2008.
Homework:
Write either of these:
Just one villanelle (Howard!)
or three full haiku.
Pay close attention
To the demands of their forms.
Constraints can inspire!
(Fifteen minutes long
Because you’re in a hurry
and this is haiku.)
Thing of the week: “Resident Alien,” available on SyFy or through Amazon.
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