Write and analyze poetry forms

Write fixed-form poetry and analyze formal structures in existing poems

Poets seeking formal discipline and readers wanting to understand how sound and structure create meaning.

• · Topic or emotion
• · Form constraints (sonnet, villanelle, haiku, etc.)
• · Existing poems for analysis

• · Completed poems in fixed forms
• · Scansion diagrams
• · Figurative language annotations

• · Comfort with syllable counting or metrical patterns
• · Understanding of rhyme schemes

• · Forcing rhyme weakens diction
• · Slavish meter following kills natural speech rhythm
• · Lineation without form is not poetry
• · Fixed forms can obscure weak ideas instead of sharpening them

• · Comprehensive form catalog (sonnet, villanelle, haiku, ghazal, sestina, pantoum)
• · Prosody instruction with scansion examples
• · Citations: Basho, Shakespeare, Thomas, Bishop, Angelou