Is+it+the+form

toc Another area vitally important for consideration is the form a poem takes.[|Samuel McChord Crothers], a rather pessemistic gentleman, suggested that poetry happened when “A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.”

I don't think that's it at all, of course, but his comments do highlight an important characteristic of poetry - its form. The form has much to do with why we call it poetry, and if the form is perfect - isn't that part of what makes it great? ** There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile, ** ** He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. ** ** He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse. ** ** And they all lived together in a little crooked house. **

=Theories on Form=

“I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.” - //Robert Frost// on free verse poetry

Poetry is “Perfection of form united with a significance of meaning.” - //T.S. Eliot//

=Terms of concern=
 * When discussing a poem's form, you'll need to be able to use the terms narrative, free verse, stanza, meter, and repetition.

=Poems to read=
 * Lord Alfred Noyes - "The Highway Man"
 * E.E. Cummings - "Loneliness"
 * Gwendolyn Brooks - "The Coora Flower"
 * Roald Dahl - "Little Red Riding Hood"
 * Edgar Allen Poe - "Annabel Lee"

=Responding in Writing=
 * Take a fairy tale, such as Roald Dahll did, and create a poem explaining it, but with your own twist on it. You must follow the same meter and rhyme pattern that Dahl does in "Little Red Riding Hood."
 * Suggestions for fairy tales here.


 * You'll attempt to take a poem and make something of it with an exercise in what's called "Found Poetry"

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