Give Forms and Junk

In this chapter Mary Oliver gives the reader a few forms through which to construct their poetry such as sonnet, couplet, and terza rima. And with this continues her one woman campaign to tell people the “proper” way to express the labyrinthine like emotions and feeling expressed through halfway decent poetry. In this chapter Mary Oliver tells us exactly how often we should rhyme and to what length our stanzas should be, and quite frankly I find that this mechanical inhuman approach to writing absconds with some of the flaws that allow poetry to be humanly flawed and relatable. Now maybe my unhinged blogger rage is spawned from me lacking the necessary brain goop to write a half way decent poem, but still I disagree vehemently with Oliver’s perpetual idea that if you write poetry outside of these set guidelines that it ultimately fail at trying to convey the emotion it is trying to put forth. But now time to hop off my soap box and now to discuss the actual chapter. Oliver does offer helpful advice to someone one looking to write poetry in this fashion (even if she does sound somewhat like a nagging Jewish grandmother). Offering a very succinct description of each form and how rhyme, meter and stanza length factor into each form. So even thought I will probably continue my idiotic adolescent angst fueled rejection of these techniques I could see someone potentially using them to create something profound.