The+Stanza's+Form

What did you all think of the stanza? I really liked it because it gave the poet so much freedom. Poets could write about virtually anything and everything because the stanza allows them to create a meter, line, and rhyme that suits whatever subject matter they're writing about. I thought it was so cool how infinity many possibilities of stanzas there are, like a Chaucerian stanza, a Spenserian stanza, or Herbertian stanza. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could create a Macrowskian stanza. It was interesting to find out in "History of the Form" that stanza actually means "room" in Italian. I think this gives much insight into a stanza's function; stanzas contain much of the same things just like most rooms have furniture, flooring, and pictures. However, not one stanza or room is alike because they all have a slightly different purpose. 1205094826

I also like the stanza because the poet has freedom. I think when reading a form where the poet has a great deal of freedom we are able to see who the poet truly is. When we are reading a poem that is of a strict form, we can only see how well a poet can create a poem to follow certain guidelines. He or she already has a roadmap to follow, and we as readers judge how well that map is followed. In the case of a form that offers the poet a lot of freedom, we as readers are able to see not only how well the poet can follow the form, but also how well he can create his own "subform". I like to read these types of poems because I think it requires more talent on the part of the poet to create a poem based on a loose form rather than a strict form.1205104439

I also liked the stanza because it gives poets a lot of freedom. I really liked Herbert's poem, "Easter Wings." I think that it is really neat the way he used visual affects along with the actual language to communicate through his poem. The shape of his poem actually looks like a pair of wings. Each stanza makes up a wing. He also uses the affect of the lines getting shorter and then longer. When the lines get shorter in the first half of each stanza Herbert talks about downfalls of man, sin, and decay. Then in the second half of the stanza he writes about being raised up by God as the lines get longer. I think that this is a neat way to use the free qualities of a form to create a new kind of art. Herbert uses the stanza in a very different way in order to build his poem.1205112645

I also thought that the format of "Easter Wings" was brilliant. And then that made me think of something that Br. Tom mentioned to us. He mentioned that the way a poem looks affects the reader. If it is a short poem or short stanzas, then we will be more likely to read it. If it is longer and the stanzas look like paragraphs, we may not be as quick to read it. When I saw "Easter Wings" I automatically thought, "wow! I want to read that, it looks intriguing." Because of the way it was shaped I thought that it was going to be a great poem. And as bga mentioned, he used the shape of the poem to convey his ideas in the poem. That just made it even better. Does anyone else feel this way when reading a poem? If it looks lenghty and the stanzas seem to go on forever, do you say to yourself "I don't want to read this"? when the pome is shorter, and you more quick to read it?" 1205119275

I see what you mean about the “Easter wings” poem. It makes the message easier to understand and it gives it almost a visual attractiveness that helps convince me to actually read it. I also agree that they way the poem looks affects my decision to read it. I don’t like reading poetry very much and thus I am attracted to shorter poems. However, I bet there is probably at least one expert like Gas or that Russian guy we read a while back that would probably look down upon us for using visual aspects of the poem to help us decide if we want to read it. I know that the blending of some of the fine arts like poetry and art can easily add to the message that the writer/painter/artist is trying to convey but there has to be some point where we draw the line. I don’t think that we should let the poem’s visual qualities be a deciding factor in our choice to read it or not (even though I am definitely guilty of that). And, one could see the flip side of the argument and say that if a poet was good enough, visual qualities would not or maybe even should not be needed to help convey the message the poet is trying to get across and instead he or she should depend on her words. Thoughts?... 1205191614

I wanted to comment on the idea of the stanze meaning "room" that LMa brought up. This image makes sense to me one hand, but then not so much on the other hand. The stanza is just like a room in that it is bare walls that can be filled whatever way the poet chooses. The poet can choose the color of the walls, the furniture, the decorations, the mood, the lighting, everything. But at the same time isn't this true for any poem? Some follow a certain rhyme scheme, but we might just say that this is a room that has specific wall layouts. Therefore, the stanza is just like any other form of poetry and really is not all that unique. Therefore, we could think of poetry as an empty house and each room is a different style. Bathrooms have less freedom in furniture choice and so on, so that could be a more restrictive type of poem. While a living room could possibly be the stanza. Does this make sense to anyone else? 1205195127

First of all, I really like Patrick's idea of thinking of poetic forms as rooms! This gives poetry a more practical spin, though, and makes me wonder where poems like Br. Tom's or The Colonel might fit in... would they be rooms without walls? Rooms built specifically by the poet, perhaps, for some strange and specific purpose, like a room built to show off a collection of statues, something you wouldn't find in any other house because no one else has quite the same collection and therefore the same arcitectural needs. Hmm, I like the idea, and I'd be interested to know what everyone else thinks.

On another note, I agree with Kent about the angel poem. While it is cute that the poet made his poem into a pretty shape, I think that we do need to look beyond the shape. Maybe I'm crazy, but the shape of the poem didn't suggest to me that this guy had some great idea, actually, it more made me think that he was working to have his words look a certain way and not focusing on the content. 1205198520

I had never really thought of the stanza as a poetic form. I just thought of it has just another aspect of what makes up a poem, though I guess it is both. I too liked the image of the stanza as a room, though like any analogy it falls apart in some ways, like The Colonel as Isi mentioned. The stanza is definitely the most visual poetic form we have seen so far, as we have seen in the Easter Wings poem. Though poems are meant to resonate in the mind through their language, it is important to note the visual effect the stanza can have as well. Just take a look at Chaucer's poem versus Wyatt's. They both have the same rhyme scheme, but Chaucher's poem looks denser just because Wyatt chose to indent some lines. In the physical sense alone, the stanza allows poetic license. 1205205283

Going back to kli and the appearance of the poem. I think that the appearance makes me really stop and look at a poem and makes me want to read it to find out what it's about. It's interesting that the way a poem looks can make us interested in reading it or not. Don't get me wrong, I will still read a poem if the appearance at first glance is boring but when if I see a poem with a boring appearance and a poem with a unique appearance next to each other, I would probably have to read the poem with the unique appearance first. I don't think that judging how a poem looks is a necessarily a good way to determine what poem to read first and Gas would probably frown on it but it does make the poem a little more interesting before even reading one word of it. 1205290646

Kfr, I agree with you. I rather read a crazy looking poem than one that just looks like all the other ones. I absolutely love the fact that the poem "Easter Wings" is in the shape almost of an angel's wings, and I know just because a poem looks cool that does not mean that it is a quality poem. However, the shape of "Not Waving but Drowning" made me think about the poem a lot more. While it sort of looks like waves or a heart beat line though it probably wasn't purposely made to look like that, its format is quite interesing with a random indented quatrain at the end. What is this supposed to mean? I'm not really sure if anyone knows, but it does make it look as if the poet spent a good deal of time just perfecting the shape. 1205365467

Well, here I go again. I loved the stanza. Not only did I think it was great because I enjoyed being able to read a set of poems that correlated with one another under a certain definition, but I thought it was great that they had the freedom to write as they saw best for their particular poem's message. I'm sure you all understand what a stickler I am about people sticking to the poem's form from the billion and a half posts I made about it earlier in the year, but I was ok with this, because there were several different forms for the author to stick to, so I wasn't as bothered by them straying a little here and there. Other than blank verse, this was the only form that I didn't find monotonous after a while. On a less specific note, I just happened to like these particular poems better. I thought they were fantastic. 1205371818

I'm happy to say that I didn't feel as lost when I was reading a stanza. A lot of it this probrably had to do with how this type of poetry has real structure to it. However, at the same time it has a lot room for creativity. Going back to the room idea, when one is creating a room in their home, they can put whatever they would like to into that room; but at the same time the furniture, paintings, rugs, etc. all have to fit with the theme of the room. The same applies to writing stanzas. You can write what you please, but it can't be completely random and come from out of nowhere. Your thoughts still have to fit the theme; otherwise, it wouldn't be considered a stanza. I was surprised to see that all of the poems in this section of the book, in my opinion, kept with the theme of the stanza. There weren't really any poems that were out of nowhere and hard to determine as to why they were considered stanzas. This also made the definition of a stanza easier to understand. One poem in the section didn't throw it off. Stanzas stick to the point and I like that about them.1205444736

I'm undecided between the sonnet and the stanza, but they're both excellent tools for creativity. Why are they so good? Because they've got a neat, good structure that's got a clear, beautiful ring to it, but at the same time, it doesn't require the long lines of repetition that other forms did that stifled the maneuverability of the writer. So take a look at a few villanelles real fast. Ain't the stanzas more broad and varied than those area? Probably just because they've got the freedom they need to both tell stories and sing love songs and make arguments. It's like blank verse, but not quite that 'liberal', because it still retains rhyme and some patterns that keep the structure together. And the size helps too - stanzas are just enough room line-wise to portray an idea or two at a time. 1205449456