Writing Therapy

Lesson 2: Turn Up the Volume?

Use of Formal Elements

Lesson Two, Section Three: Use of Formal Elements

This is a few lines from a poem by Robert Frost. “the Road not Taken“ which I‘m sure you have heard before:
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you look at it without paying attention to the meaning, you can see some elements of what are called poetics. There is a rhythm and it rhymes, for example. I suspect all of you have been introduced to this way of looking at poetry and the elements that make it work at some time in your life. If not, the book edited by Strand has some information on this. Once again, I don’t want to get hung up on this issue. This is from Mullen (and off the web)
WIPE THAT SIMILE OFF YOUR APHASIA
as horses as for
as purple as we go
as heartbeat as if
as silverware as it were
as onion as I can
as cherries as feared
as combustion as want
as dog collar as expected
as oboes as anyone
as umbrella as catch can
as penmanship as it gets
as narcosis as could be
as hit parade as all that
as ice box as far as I know
as fax machine as one can imagine
as cyclones as hoped
as dictionary as you like
as shadow as promised
as drinking fountain as well
as grassfire as myself
as mirror as is
as never as this

As you can see this is somewhat different. She is using a new rhythm and odd format, which is called signifying. This related to the tendency in poetry to use the vernacular or common everyday speech.

Contemporary or experimental or avant-garde poetry also at times goes in the other direction from the vernacular into the artificial by using artifice consciously. I mentioned OULIPO earlier as an influence here on poetics. OULIPO was a group of French Theoreticians which met regularly to develop interest ancient forms of poetry and in combinatorial or artificial forms of poetry. I’m sure by now most of you have come across works that use this and it might be interesting if you could provide an example or two for us.

It also might be helpful here to take a look at the experimental poetry examles Charles Berstein has pu on the net and also the other sites I provided.

I think you all have come up with some thoughts on the ways these formal elements of poetics could be used to exaggerate or accentuate the feelings you write or throw out in your poems.

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