Discovering Form (3)

Beyond Amorphous

Previously, I used the word “amorphous” to describe my first drafts. Free verse does not pour words into a metre-and-rhyme mould, and lacks a measurable pattern. However, it does achieve form in the other ways it handles line: for example, by choosing to enjamb or end-stop; by grouping some lines of like length together for emphasis, or to contrast in rhythm and tone; by designing eccentric layouts on the page and in the ear; by incorporating repetition; and so on.

Form also gives poetry public value as ritual. It conveys that needed sense of ceremony to expresses the joy, pride, or heartbreak we feel, bubbling up for a wedding, celebrating a baptism, or solemnizing a funeral. In bestowing order on the flux of human experience, for a moment it comforts with the illusion that we understand and are in control.