Open Form

I love Langston Hughes.  I especially love "I, Too," so I was glad to see it was included in the text.  I am aware of how terrible an idea it can be, conventionally, to have one word lines in a poem, but they are used to great effect here, to drive home the point, to emphasize the hope for tomorrow, the fullness of spirit in spite of the painful experience of being black in the US before the Civil Rights Movement.

Williams's "Spring and All" is not my favorite of his poems, but it is one in which I think the form particularly suits the subject matter.  The shorter, clipped stanza really capture the scant, apparently lifeless nature of these fields, and then, later, of the tiny glimpse of spring coming soon.

I have mixed feelings about Ginsberg.  I appreciate the truth of many of his poems, but there's only so much dark, biting imagery I really want to read at one time, and he tends to triple that.  That said, I think the massive block structure and long lines of his poem fit the subject's irate and ranting nature; it is certainly better suited to this form than to anything rhymed or with regular meter.

I tend to prefer to write poetry in open forms, at least when I'm drafting.  Often I find after they're written that certain poems might be well suited to more regular forms, but when it comes to getting the ideas down, it's easiest for me to not be constrained by meter or rhyme schemes.  In fact, this is how I wrote my sonnet- first in open form, then fitted to sonnet form.

I do find, though, that not having the sense of history and connotation other forms have makes it difficult sometimes for me to know whether or not the open form in which I choose to write is really serving any purpose.  That's definitely the case with my poem for the week; I spent a fair amount of time rearranging line breaks, and then un-rearranging line breaks, and then messing around with stanza breaks, and I don't know if it was to any real end.  I definitely appreciated the alleviated pressure to force my word choices to fit with particular rhyme schemes or meters, though.

I am wanting home-

light, listless snow tumbling

over the blaze of light, of life, the dying leaves,

the brisk, crisp sigh of the wind, cool autumn crunching,

soft snowflake caught in the faces, the fur

of the blundering dogs, the ebullient dogs,

my mother, clothed for winter before Autumn ever closes,

the screech of the owl piercing the sky,

brilliant in a night lit only by stars.

I am wanting home-

close comfort of dark evening roomlight,

sense of space, safe even when the world outside threatens

to tumble in, depth of breath brought only by total calm,

love in, love out.

I am wanting home.