<!DOCTYPE html> <!-- AUTOCENTO OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE --> <!-- vim: fdm=indent --> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="generator" content="pandoc"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes"> <meta name="author" content="Case Duckworth"> <title>On formal poetry | Autocento of the breakfast table</title> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="trunk/favico.png" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="trunk/style.css"> <script src="scripts/randomize.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script src="scripts/hylo.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"> </script> <![endif]--> </head> <body id="onformalpoetry" class="elegies"> <article class="container"> <header> <!-- title --> <h1 class="title">On formal poetry</h1> <div class="header-extra"> </div> </header> <section class="content verse"> <p><span class="line">I think that I could write formal poems</span><span class="line">exclusively, or at least inclusive</span><span class="line">with all the other stuff I write</span><span class="line">I guess. Of course, I’ve already written</span><span class="line">a few, this one included, though “formal”</span><span class="line">is maybe a stretch. Is blank verse a form?</span><span class="line">What is form anyway? I picture old</span><span class="line">women counting <a href="roughgloves.html">stitches on their knitting</a>,</span><span class="line">keeping iambs next to iambs in lines</span><span class="line">as straight and sure as arrows. But my sock</span><span class="line">is lumpy, poorly made: it’s beginning</span><span class="line">to unravel. Stresses don’t line up. Syl-</span><span class="line">lables forced to fit like <a href="ronaldmcdonald.html">McNugget</a> molds.</span><span class="line">That cliché on the arrow? I’m aware.</span><span class="line">My prepositions too—God, where’s it stop?</span><span class="line">The answer: never. I will never stop</span><span class="line">writing poems, or hating what I write.</span></p> </section> </article> <a id="textlink" title="Source file" href="text/onformalpoetry.txt">¶</a> <nav> <div class="anchors"> <a href="backlinks/onformalpoetry.html" id="backlinks" title="Links to this page"> φ </a> <a href="index.html" id="coverlink" title="To cover">◊</a> <a href="#" id="randomizelink" title="ERROR">ξ</a> </div> <a class="prevlink" href="feedingtheraven.html" title="Previous article in Elegies for alternate selves"> Feeding the raven </a> <a class="nextlink" href="i-am.html" title="Next article in Elegies for alternate selves"> I am </a> </nav> </body> </html>