In this day and age, poetic form gets a bad rap. Somewhere along the line, free verse poems became considered modern poetry, and everything else kind of fell by the literary wayside. Sonnets are for Shakespeare, rhymes are for kids, and when was the last time anyone cared about a trochee, anyway?

Free verse poems are great, but I’ve always been drawn to fixed form poetry. So today, I thought I’d share one of my favorite forms with you. (Yes, hello, it’s me: the annoying girl in your English class who raises her hand to talk about the significance of enjambment).

Here, have a villanelle done by a master. This is “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath:

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Haunting, right? Part of the reason this poem works so well is its form. See the way she repeats some of the lines throughout the poem? This is traditionally represented as:

A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2

A1 and A2 are those repeated lines. Lower-case a and b are for rhyme scheme. Her “a” lines rhyme on “dead, head, red” and her “b” lines on “again, in, men”. This interlocking of rhyme scheme and repetition makes a villanelle easy to spot.

Other examples of villanelles you may know include “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas and “If I Could Tell You” by W. H. Auden.

Forms make you think about words in a different way. When you have limited mobility in one dimension, you have to get creative with the others. In the case of the villanelle, what’s limited is how many different lines and rhymes you have to work with. What’s not limited? Subject matter, meter, voice...the list goes on. Using forms is a great writing exercise because it forces you outside your comfort zone.

Here’s a challenge for you: try writing a villanelle. Plath wrote “Mad Girl’s Love Song” in college, after all, so why not give it a go? It doesn’t have to be your favorite thing you’ve ever written, but I guarantee you’ll be surprised by what you come up with.

​Written by Megan G.

In "I Interview Rice Students About Poetry", I, you guessed it, interview Rice students about poetry, that oft perplexing arrangement of words.
 
How would you define poetry?
Student 1: I guess poetry is the use of words to paint a picture of something?
Student 2: Poetry is for people who want to express a sentiment but don't have enough words to make it prose.
Student 3: Words?
 
How frequently do you read poetry?
Student 1: Never.
Student 2: (laughs) Every goddamn day.
Student 3: I don't really read poetry, but I used to watch a lot of spoken word shit.
 
Can you name any famous modern poets?
Student 1: Rupi...shit.
Student 2: Shel Silverstein.
Student 3: Modern poets? What do you mean by modern poets?
From the last 30-40 years.
Student 3: There's that one guy...Robert Frost. Oh, Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss!
 
What do you think poetry's role is as a creative or artistic genre?
Student 1: Its role is to allow people to express themselves in a way that they might find typical writing limits them.
Student 2: I think that it's good for expressing emotions, because sometimes you write too many words to where you lose the feeling you're going for. So I think that poetry is good for feelings. Like in the ambiguities, it lets people understand what you're trying to say.
Student 3: It's like an outlet for expression...I guess. I don't know, poetry's weird. It's like, you can literally make some grunts, and then title it 'Grunts', and that's a poem.
 
What's your least favorite poem?
Student 1: I pulled this up because I read it in sixth grade and I was really mad at poetry then because I thought it was really stupid.

The Red Wheelbarrow
By William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

And that's the whole poem! That makes me really angry.

Student 2: Also William Carlos Williams: I find this super funny because from what has been described to me about this poem, they just found it on his desk after he died, and
no one can figure out if it was an actual poem or just a note on his desk.

This Is Just To Say
By William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


Beautiful.
 
What is something about poetry that confuses you?
Student 1: So you know when you're little and you learn that poems rhyme? And then you get to fifth grade and they stop rhyming. And that just like really threw me off.
Student 2: If you only keep reading Shel Silverstein, you never have that problem.
 
What makes a poem good?
Student 1: Not The Red Wheelbarrow poem.
It makes you feel something. I know that sounds really corny, but when I read Rupi Kaur, I'm like, holy shit, do I feel it. When I read Milk & Honey, I just like sat there and was like, this woman just put her whole life on display for everyone in the most beautiful way. And that's why I struggle with the genre of poetry because I feel that very few poems do actually make me feel the way her writing did.
Student 2: I really like the extremes to which you can go with poetry, which was kinda why I really liked Shel Silverstein. His poems are always weird, and I feel like people don't write enough weird poems.
Student 3: When it speaks to you. When a lot of people find that they can connect with it.
 
Written by Sanvitti S.​
Inspired by The Adroit Journal’s We Ask Our Parents About Poetry.

​Ekphrastic poetry has come to be defined as poems written about works of art; however, in ancient Greece, the term ekphrasis was applied to the skill of describing a thing with vivid detail. One of the earliest examples of ekphrasis can be found in Homer’s epic poem The Iliad, in which the speaker elaborately describes the shield of Achilles in nearly 150 poetic lines:
                                                           
And first Hephaestus makes a great and massive shield,
blazoning well-wrought emblems all across its surface,
 
And he forged on the shield two noble cities filled                            
with mortal men. With weddings and wedding feasts in one
 
And he forged the Ocean River’s mighty power girdling
round the outmost rim of the welded indestructible shield.                                        
(The Iliad, Book 18, lines 558–707)
                                                           
In addition to the descriptions of a work of art, an ekphrastic poem usually includes an exploration of how the speaker is impacted by his or her experience with the work. This week, I encourage you to test out this fun poetry form!
 
To get you started, here’s some of my favorite paintings I studied in my Art History class this semester.

Written by Ellie M.

Once asked to write a full story in six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway responded: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn." In this spirit, Smith Magazine challenged writers to explore a new way to tell stories when they published a novel called Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs from Writers Famous and Obscure.

Every page is packed full of six word phrases that strive to tell the story of your life—some part of it or all of it—in exactly six words. Smith Magazine believes six word memoirs are a powerful tool to catalyze conversation, spark imagination or simply break the ice. Whether they are happy, sad, or just plain silly, writing and reading six word memoirs offers hours of entertainment.

Here's some of my favorites:

Her dreams kept her reality warm.

I still make coffee for two.

A crush on John Kransinski. Unrequited.

Springing forward and I'm already behind.

Some cross-eyed kid, forgotten then found.

Grandma's candy jar was always full.

Sounded much better in my head.

Most powerful words: thanks and sorry. 

Too much vanilla, not enough chocolate.

My second grade teacher was right.

You could spend a lifetime brainstorming.
​
So this weekend when you have a little free time, give six a try—and make your words count.

by Ellie Mix ('20)

Whenever I get really really stressed, doing something creative always helps me unwind. With finals looming ahead, everyone might need a little literary study break! When you find yourself feeling frazzled, I encourage you to try some out some blackout poetry.

All you need is a loose newspaper article, a book page or a magazine you are willing to part with, and a sharpie! Your goal—create a brand new story using the existing text in front of you. To begin, glance down at the page and box in any phrases that for whatever reason, really strike you. Now, see if any of these phrases fit together. The catch? You can’t move any of the text and you still want the poem to read correctly from left to right. You can choose whether you want to make a broad story out of just "big" words like nouns, verbs, and adjectives or if you want to create a more coherent narrative using big words and little words like "is," "of," and "the" to move the story along. Once you have a stanza or two marked out, you are ready for the fun part! Blackout EVERYTHING ELSE on the page, and feel all of your angst instantly melt away. If you want to get super fancy, you can even create pictures on the page to match the feel of your brand new poem.

I love blackout poetry because you can create something uniquely your own that stems from writing that’s already out there. There is something special about finding secret messages in unlikely places, and I swear the entire process is ridiculously therapeutic.

Have fun & happy last week of classes! ​

Written by Ellie M.