An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art

by Varnes, Kathrine

• ISBN13: 9780472067251
• ISBN10: 0472067257
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

At once handbook, reader, and guide to the literary tastes and wisdom of poets, An Exaltation of Forms is an indispensable resource certain to find a dedicated audience among poetry lovers. The editors invited over fifty contemporary poets to select a poetic meter, stanza, or form, describe it, recount its history, and provide favorite examples. The essays represent a remarkably diverse range of literary styles and approaches, and show how the forms of contemporary English-language poetry derive from a wealth of different traditions. The forms range from hendecasyllabics to prose poetry, haiku to procedural poetry, sonnets to blues, rap to fractal verse. The range of poets included is equally impressive--from Amiri Baraka to John Frederick Nims, from Maxine Kumin to Marilyn Hacker, from Agha Shahid Ali to Pat Mora, from W. D. Snodgrass to Charles Bernstein. Achieving this level of eclecticism is a remarkable feat, especially given the strong opinions held by members of the various camps (e.g., the New Formalists, LANGUAGE poets, feminist and multicultural poets) that exist within today's poetry community. Poets who might never occupy the same room here occupy the same pages, perhaps for the first time. The net effect is a book that will surprise, inform, and delight a wide range of readers, whether as reference book, pleasure reading, or classroom text. Annie Finch is Associate Professor of English, Miami University of Ohio. She is the author of http://www.press.umich.edu/titles/10405.html http://www.press.umich.edu/titles/10405.html"

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(14)
I. METERS
Accentual Verse	15	(9)
Dana Gioia
Syllabics: Sweeter Melodies	24	(8)
Margaret Holley
Counted Verse: Upper Limit Music	32	(7)
Paul Hoover
Iambic Meter	39	(7)
John Ridland
Blank Verse	46	(6)
Anthony Hecht
Anapestics	52	(7)
Charles O. Hartman
Running with Abandon: Some Notes on Trochaic Meter	59	(7)
Carl Phillips
Dactylic Meter: A Many-Sounding Sea	66	(7)
Annie Finch
Free Verse	73	(8)
Michelle Boisseau
All Composed in a Meter of Catullus: Hendecasyllabics	81	(5)
Rachel Hadas
Pronouncing ``Carpenter'': Quantitative Meter in English	86	(9)
Rosanna Warren
Off the Main Road: Some Maverick Meters	95	(12)
John Frederick Nims
II. STANZAS
``The Bravest Sort of Verses'': The Heroic Couplet	107	(9)
Timothy Steele
The Self-Engendering Muse: Terza Rima	116	(6)
Felix Stefanile
The Quatrain	122	(10)
John Hollander
Sapphics	132	(9)
Grace Schulman
Ottava Rima	141	(7)
Jacqueline Osherow
Spenser's Eponymous	148	(8)
R. S. Gwynn
The Decima: A Poetic Journey from Spain to New Mexico	156	(11)
Pat Mora
III. RECEIVED FORMS
The Folk Ballad	167	(13)
W. D. Snodgrass
The Ballade: Exquisite Intricacy	180	(8)
Judith Barrington
The Blues	188	(10)
Raymond R. Patterson
Taking Shape: The Art of Carmina Figurata	198	(8)
Jan D. Hodge
Gists, Piths, and Poison-Pills: The Art of the Epigram	206	(4)
X. J. Kennedy
Ghazal: To Be Teased into DisUnity	210	(7)
Agha Shahid Ali
Haiku	217	(6)
Jean Hyung Yul Chu
Hip-Hop Rhyme Formations: Open Your Ears	223	(5)
Tracie Morris
Japanese-Style Linked Poems	228	(10)
William J. Higginson
Penny Harter
Form Lite: Limericks and Clerihews	238	(4)
Gail White
A Wand Made of Words: The Litany Poem	242	(5)
Nancy Willard
Musical Form and Formalist Poetry	247	(7)
Rob Hardin
The Pantoum's Postcolonial Pedigree	254	(8)
Vince Gotera
Strange Tales and Bitter Emergencies: A Few Notes on the Prose Poem	262	(10)
Michel Delville
Maxine Chernoff
The Metrics of Rap	272	(7)
DJ Renegade
Rondeaux and Roundels	279	(11)
Thomas M. Disch
Sestina: The End Game	290	(7)
Lewis Turco
The Sonnet	297	(11)
Marilyn Hacker
Triolet: Trippingly on the Tongue	308	(6)
Kathleene West
Gymnastics: The Villanelle	314	(11)
Maxine Kumin
IV. PRINCIPLES FOR FORMAL EXPERIMENTATION
Organic Form	325	(9)
Hilda Morley
Fractal Amplifications	334	(7)
Alice Fulton
Performance Poetry	341	(11)
Bob Holman
Beyond Found Poetry	352	(7)
Keith Tuma
The List Poem	359	(7)
David Lehman
Procedural Poetry: The Intentions of Nonintention	366	(13)
Jena Osman
Nude Formalism: A Sampler	379	(6)
Charles Bernstein
Oulipian Poetry	385	(6)
Aldon Lynn Nielsen
Two American Verse Forms: The Cinquain and the Quatern	391	(3)
Allison Joseph
The Low Coup as a Contemporary Afro-American Verse Form	394	(2)
Amiri Baraka
The Paradelle	396	(4)
Billy Collins
Predetermined Avant-Garde Forms	400	(13)
Mark Wallace
Bibliography: Sources for Further Reading	413	(4)
Contributors	417	(9)
Acknowledgments	426	(9)
Index of Names	435