Does anyone write poetry with structure anymore?

Question

What I really appreciate is an active use of the language itself to produce effects and mood. Poems with meter, rhyme, alliteration, etc. It's cool. A concrete example would be Poe's Raven. It seems like every contemporary poem is a morose rambling. It has it's place, but it's like if all you had to listen to was techno . . . Does anyone know of any good contemporary poets who still use these devices? Blank verse? Anything?

Answer 1

Yes. There is an entire movement dedicated to formal poetry, called "The Neo-Formalists" who are often connected with the Expansive Poets. Storyline Press published a lot of their work.

Some names:

X. J. Kennedy
Robert Shaw
Charles Martin
Robert McDowell
Mark Jarman
Frederick Turner
Frederick Feirstein's
Sidney Lea's
Julia Alvarez
Rita Dove
Marilyn Hacker
Richard Moore

You may enjoy the anthologies "Strong Measures: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms", "A Formal Feeling Comes" or "Rebel Angels," all of which feature formal poetry by modern poets.

You may also enjoy the magazine Measure, which features formal poetry:
http://measure.evansville.edu/

Answer 2

Derek Walcott (1992 Nobel Laureate in literature) does:

PENTECOST

Better a jungle in the head
than rootless concrete.
Better to stand bewildered
by the fireflies' crooked street;

winter lamps do not show
where the sidewalk is lost,
nor can these tongues of snow
speak for the Holy Ghost;

the self-increasing silence
of words dropped from a roof
points along iron railings,
direction, in not proof.

But best is this night surf
with slow scriptures of sand,
that sends, not quite a seraph,
but a late cormorant,

whose fading cry propels
through phosphorescent shoal
what, in my childhood gospels,
used to be called the Soul.



Your question is interesting. It's true that form is usually considered a constraint by contemporary poets, and the result is that anything can be called poetry, even if it has absolutely no literary interest. But contemporary poets (I mean, the real ones...) who do not use conventional forms usually adopt other types of form, when they work on rhythm and sound. Walcott does not always write the kind of poem I copied above, but he still finds some sort of form.

If you want to read more poems by him:
http://almaz.com/nobel/literature/1992a.html

On the other hand, some people use conventional forms nowadays (such as rhyming couplets, or abab structures), and, honestly, they come out with the most boring stuff too... So, really, I don't think form, in its conventional sense, really matters nowadays, but it's true that good literature does matter.

Answer 3

Do you mean to say that "The Raven" isn't morose rambling? News to me.

At any rate, there are any number of sources of poetry with "meter, rhyme, alliteration, etc." The word you're looking for is "formal." A logical first step might be:
http://www.formalpoetry.com/

They publish some decent stuff, and if you look through it you'll doubtless find some that you like. Try also here:
http://measure.evansville.edu/

and the wikipedia article on New Formalism, a movement that should interest you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Formalism

Just googling for "formal poetry" will get you pretty far.

I can't think of any well-known modern poet who writes exclusively formal verse (maybe Dana Gioia, but how well known are they?). You could try the names from this article:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5667

We seem to have different tastes, but good luck to you nonetheless! May you find what you're looking for.

Answer 4

I agree with you. I love sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, etc. I don't read a lot of the modern stuff because I don't like the rambling sort of "poems" either. I write poems myself, and I love toying with structured forms. Granted, I write free verse too, but even then I try to use vivid images and alliteration. I still love the Romantic poets; they really knew how to write.

Answer 5

If you want great poetry with structure, look beyond yahoo answers for a start, as it is a scarce commodity here.
I believe great poets are a rare breed. They surely still exist, but they are hidden and ignored under the onslaught of rap, crap and a decreasing standard of literacy. Few can spell and use grammar correctly, let alone write poetry!

Answer 6

Here's one I wrote and have copyrighted.

A Six-Line Poem About Writing Poems Which Stress the Musical Aspect

To expound on vowels and rounded sounds
Is to pen a perfect poem.
Stretching syntax to its seams
Seems to be the theme.
And when words do weave a windsong web,
Your task, at last, is past.

I hope you like it.

Answer 7

Poetry has lost its meaning and name in most of the 'poems' that get written on this forum. They lack most things that a poem should have. No structure. Just stringing of words together, no meaning.......... A good contemporary poet that i know is, Niyi Osundare, just put the name in your search engine, he is very good.

Answer 8

I think everyone can write poems. But not everyone has the gift to write freely when they want to, hey it happens to some not all yeah. I'm not saying you suck because I don't know any of your stuff. But here is what i want to tell you which is what i do when i write lyrics. Just write your own stuff that comes to your head. Don't write from other lyrics or words of someone else because all you will do is copy from someone else's and not have your own style. I dunno i think I am one of the people who can write freely really haha.

Answer 9

The Menage a trois of 'Iris Murdoch'.

Answer 10

poetry with structure
something nice like a haiku
six,seven six it is.........