Poetic Form:Rhyme & Reason

We can love poetry our whole lives without any knowledge of poetic forms, conventions or prosody. That’s part of its magic. But understanding a bit more about them — as most poets do — adds another layer of pleasure and appreciation to something we did not think we could possibly love more.

The tools we’ll begin using in this accessible five-week study give us delicious new ways to eavesdrop on poets as they speak not only to us but also to one another, to tradition, to history and to convention. We will consider definitions and examples of five primary poetic forms and explore how each poet’s making or breaking of its conventions illuminates the two to three poems we read in each session.

Enjoy the beauties of Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, then get in on Wallace Stevens’ joke, as well as his deeper meaning, when he spoofs stereotypes about American cultural barbarism 99 years later in Anecdote of the Jar.

Watch James Merrill flex by linking seven sonnet variations together in The Broken Home, his formal skill and wit bring stability and order to the familial and cultural chaos this autobiographical poem recounts.

In One Art, Elizabeth Bishop, like Dylan Thomas before her, commandeers the incantatory, dance-inspired Villanelle form to rage against a series of losses, including the suicide of Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares, her longtime lover. Tim Seibles mixes the strict, previously snow white form with the Blues to mourn his African-American parents in All the Time Blues Villanelle.

William Cowper (Epitaph on a Hare) and Alan Ginsberg (To Aunt Rose) subvert elegiac conventions originally rooted in patrician Ancient Greece. Cowper by solemnly eulogising the merits of his pet hare; Ginsburg by recasting the life of his “nobody” Newark-based working class Jewish communist immigrant aunt as the stuff of legend.

Each week we’ll delve into a variety of poems — some traditional and some intent on breaking the mould; some old and some new — all are available for free online (or in one or two cases through facilitator handouts).

Week-by-week reading schedule (Thursdays 6.30-8.30 pm UK):

1. 5 March: Sonnet
2. 12 March: Villanelle
3. 19 March: Elegy
4. 26 March: Ode
5. 2 April: Sestina

JOINING DETAILS:

• Five week live online study led by Dr Nancy Goldstein
• Thursday 5 March to 2 April, 6.30-8.30 pm (UK)
• Five weeks £175 (individual sessions can be booked at £40 each, please email us for more information)

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REDUCED COSTS: we are committed to making our studies as affordable as possible. We have a fund in place to support anyone who would like to register for a study but finds the cost difficult to afford. We can’t promise to help, but please email us at litsalon@gmail.com in confidence if you would like to request a reduction in the cost of a study.