You want easy? Write in received forms

Inspired by a discussion on Stephen Burt's blog about the ubiquity of sestinas.

It's anti-intuitive for many readers, I think, to say that forms are easier poems to write than free verse. After all, in forms you have all those other things to worry about, repetends or meters or rhymes or envois or voltas or the dreaded couplet.

But when all is said and done, from my perspective, forms are easier. Why? A couple of reasons.

1. Fewer decisions. You know when a villanelle is done moving. You don't really have any choice about when to end a sestina. And while you can play with the expectations of your reader, you don't have to.

2. Language. Plunk the most plain-spoken prose into a dizain and it will sound like a poem. Rhyme and meter bolster language into something "poetic." In free verse, the word choice, the rhythms, they're out there on their own.

3. Expectation. Write a sonnet. Some people will dismiss you without reading it, but far more will praise you without caring about the quality of the poem. Writing in a received form is viewed by many as an accomplishment in itself.

4. Tradition. It's okay to write a derivative sonnet.

5. Validation. No one will say your villanelle isn't a poem. They might say it stinks, but not that it isn't a poem.

6. Solace. Poet you can't be too upset when a pantoum goes wrong. After all, you didn't expect it to be good in the first place.


All this is coming from someone who writes in received forms about 90% of the time. For some people, meter or rhyme or any other element of a form are too difficult to overcome. But for the majority of people, I think it's easier to write a "good"¹ sonnet than a "good" free verse poem.


¹"Good" is a poem that is received as good, not an attempt to define the quality of the poem itself.