The State of the Art

I must chime in on what I feel is a sad trend in poetry today. With the rise in popularity of free-verse poems, there seems to be a huge and quite obvious bias against the study, crafting, and reading of classical-style formed, metered poetry.

This disheartens me. I hold an ACP designation (Accredited Classical Poet), and I work almost exclusively in metered forms. From the old classics (the sonnet, the villanelle, the rondeau) to the newer forms created by myself and other neo-classicists (the trijan refrain, the ravenelle, the symmetrelle), I love and write them all. I have also written some lovely free-verse, but for me the forms and meters of the classics are where my roots are, and where my heart lies.

Poetry and visual art are very much alike in one huge respect. There is no right or wrong, when it comes to style. As an artist, you must still practice and refine your natural talent, and master the basics. Now, whether you paint classical landscapes and portraits, or abstract, nouveau shapes and patterns, is a personal choice.

The structures and metering requirements of classical forms seem to be a challenge that many people are not willing to work at, let alone master. The requirements of building a large and fluent vocabulary; studying diction, accent, flow, and rhyme; and learning to paint vivid word pictures, while staying inside the lines, is very much like mastering classical painting.

Make no mistake; creating good poetry is a skill that must be developed, quite like the skill to paint good pictures. Anyone can splash paint on a canvas and call it art, and anyone can create images and metaphors of joined words on a page and call it poetry. Does that make it good art, or good poetry? Good is a tough call. It is a very subjective and personal term, but I think we will all agree that Michelangelo and Picasso--both masters of their own respective styles—took very different approaches to their craft. The same is true of both Longfellow and Whitman. They each mastered their own style, one classically metered and the other free-verse. They really are apples and oranges.

For me, the true joy of writing poetry is found when working within the rigid constraints of meter and structure. I find it much more challenging than simply creating a melodic flow and rhythm, which is the basis of ANY great poetry, regardless of form or style. Toward that end, I have published a number of How To essays, by which I am endeavoring to teach others the joy and beauty that can still be attained using classical forms and metered cadences. There is after all a reason that Shakespeare was not just a bard, but The Bard.

There are many wonderful channels for classic poetry to be savored and shared, but the mainstream forums are filled with artists who seem to lack not only the discipline and desire to master classic rhyming poetry, but the ability to appreciate it as well. Often, the forms and structures are ridiculed or ignored for the very reasons they are challenging.

Classical poetry form restraints are sometimes misunderstood and often falsely accused of limiting the poet’s creativity. The truth is, this rigidity and focus allows the true artistry of a wordsmith to be refined and explored. It is my belief, born out of many years of work and study, that the dedication required to color inside intricate lines, can create a masterpiece of language art that scribbling—even if done with the greatest of intent or design—can’t match.

I wish that every aspiring poet, regardless of the style they choose to eventually work in and become skilled at, would work at and build at least one poem in a strong, rhythmic, metered form. This process can often bring out the true artistry within a poet’s soul, in a way that all the new-wave, post-modern abstractions and free-verse thought expressions, simply cannot.

We might just get to witness a new golden age of poetry.

- dustygrein