A question was brought up with me privately about following the rules. Do you follow the rules? How do you decide which rules to skip or fudge? When you break a rule, how do you justify it? Do you even bother to justify yourself? What about making amends for breaking rules?
The rules for many forms of poetry are pretty exact. A sonnet has 14 lines of verse. There's debate concerning the rhyming of the end words, but the number of lines is specific and firm. Then there's the villanelle. The idea behind the villanelle is to repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza throughout the entire poem in a prescribed order. Sometimes that works well, consider Dylan Thomas' classic Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. And sometimes it works more smoothly to alter the lines ever so slightly in order to improve comprehension: One Art by Elizabeth Bishop.
But how do you know when it's okay to follow the form with your own adjustments and when it's best to stick strictly with the guidelines? I offer that it's a matter of opinion. I also suggest that it's important to learn the form or technique (prose has its own rules, think of the parameters of essay, short-short, review, sci-fi, etc.) before venturing out on the fringes of the genre.
Follow the rules or not, but here's my prompt for the day.
Using any form you like, write and publish a post including:
- a foreign word or phrase
- a time period in the distant past or future
- five stones
- the word "wink"
Add WWE to your tags. When I click on that exact tag, all posts with that tag show up for me and I can read and comment on them more easily.
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Here are the day's submissions (that I could find), all worthy of a view by you.
Rainbow by Sheila Deeth
Nom de Plume by Stirling D.
Maybe -- a cinquain by Elsie Duggan
Skipping Stones by Lynn P.
Echo My Heart by Animaluvr S.
Remembering Laura by Susan Budig
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Comments: 28
My avocation, proofreader...I thank you for posting this exercise--I dare say, I wish this group were mandatory for every Gather member. :+)
The prompt is intriguing, Susan, but mine will have to wait till tomorrow, as I'm off for a little jaunt to see my kids and grandkids today.
Sayonara *(Does that count?)
An excellent topic Susan. I am always tempted to break the rules even as I am learning them. Actually I think it helps my understanding, especially when I fail. I know there are many who don't like this approach and find it a bit cheeky. And with all appropriate apologies for better writers who came before, it seems to be the way I personally learn the best. I don't advocate this for everyone, I just like to find where intentionality supersedes precedent. I hope I have time today to submit a worthy response to your challenge. Thank you very much Susan for providing us with such thoughtful ideas and exercises. Sincerely.
I had a voice teacher once tell me that we learn the rules so we can break them. And a few years later an art teacher said the same thing to me.
Found this article to be informative. I don't really know a thing about poetry, except what I like and what I don't like to read.
EM JAY, yep, I've heard those words from a few professional musicians--know the rules before you break them.
I believe the same definitely applies to writing and most everything else.
I don't think that's "exactly"what EM Jay said Susan. You moved "once" from its position before "tell" to a position before "we". ;-)
And what did I say elsewhere, Mr. Atticus? Another example of your careful reading...
;-)
Superb prompt, Susan...
Featured in the The Triple Name Club
I've always wanted to break rules, so I will. thanks for this
Might give it a try...
Only now wetting my toes with genre and form, I have no rules to work with. As a writing prompt, this sounds like it'll be a fun exercise and Lord knows I could use all that comes my way.
Thank you Susan.
Since I am, by no means, a writer with lifelong aspirations to the craft, I must correlate the question "Do you follow the rules?" (in concert with the parameters of the question as you have defined them above) to form(s) of art with which I am much more familiar...
The nearest that I can come to it would be as regards dance. Beginning as student of ballet and modern dance, eventually I found my niche in "Jazz dance" (a form which suited both my personal style and my body-type best).
Well into my experiences of the study, performance and teaching of the art of dance, I began to experiment with combinations of Jazz and ballet in certain choreographies -- a combination that, in particular instances, worked extremely well with the added benefit of being such a "novelty" that it immediately drew the attention and interest of the audience.
So, one could say that I "broke the rules" of ballet and, at the same time, those of jazz dance in doing so.
I feel the key element, however, in making it work ("well", that is...) -- so that the entire performance didn't come off as being a hopelessly jumbled excursion into anarchy -- was the fact that, by that time, I was well acquainted (EXTREMELY well acquainted) with the "rules" of both forms and, so, was able to meld them with some measure of seamless expertise.
I should think that the same proviso would apply to the craft of writing...
Ah, Jean, I pull from your welcomed explication above the words "seamless expertise." It truly does take immersion and comprehension of a genre and then a mastering of that genre before one can legitimately deviate from it. That's my opinion, of course, but I strongly believe it.
The seamless expertise happens with authority when the artist has full command over that which s/he is crafting.
May give this a go, Susan, thanks for the challenge
Thanks for the advice
10 4 u
Good questions. I say that real poetry cannot be sidelined by rules. Real in that it is written from a perspective or feeling or the artist. Artist I say because it is a painting in the mind of words, thoughts,atc... transformation onto paper(orscreen). I never understood that there were rules to poetry, since most of the words I write can be a song. I think that many would agree that some creator of rules did not have all in mind 9every thinker). How can 1 person decide what the rules are? This is a changing world and with it comes new things everyday. If we were to live by the set rules that poetry self appointed founding fathers apply, we skip over the history of the poem rising from a song in the heart. I stand valiently in writing what I do, whether or not it rymes, sounds poetic(yet breaks the rules) or is an art form that has no true genre in which it applies. I feel that there is a wider perspectibve to what people think poetry is rather than what they have been taught of what some rules say about what it is. I understand that there are many different forms with rules, thus many new ones being created as we discuss this subject as well. It is a world full of feelings. Many fall under that umbrella: Artistic feelings-or expresions really do not need a category of poetic storage(yet some do). It all depends on who you are and what you do.
There needs to be a rule in certain defined forms, but this does not apply (at least by me) to every work considered a poem). Poetry(universal description) is something that you feel. I know many old books full of poems that break all the rules.
sorry for the typos. I have a hangover. I keep violating the rules I set on myself last month. I think some of us are bent on breaking rules, lol. :)
I try to follow the rules, especially when I've never tried the form, as in your triolet prompt, as its rules were very specific. Or, they seemed to me, to be. In every work, such as free verse, I probably don't, but if it's Cinquain, Haiku or another very defined type, I do follow them.
Thanks, I still haven't done this, as I'm usually out of the apartment or very busy with that "life" thing, but I'd like to try this one.
Marilyn
You have me trying to remember to log onto gather every Wednesday morning now. Thank you for the inspiration, and for listing the entries, which I'm now catching up with.
Sheila, what a compliment! thx! :-)