Tzara
Continental
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2005
- Posts
- 7,918
I recently read Billy Collins' Musical Tables, a volume of what he calls "small poems." Collins says, "The small poem is a flash, a gesture, a gambit without the game that follows. There's no room for landscape here, or casual reflection, but there is opportunity for humor and poignancy."
Like the haiku, which is of course a form of small poem, the small poem is brief not only in length but in imagery and theme. The poet simply doesn't have enough words to do more than tackle a single theme, a single comment, a single image. The resulting strength is that the poem is of necessity focused—one can't wander about too much in ten lines or less. That is, at least for me, one of its great attractions; each word must truly count.
In Collins' definition "the small poem has no rules except to be small. Its length, or lack of it, is the only formal requirement." I would add the arbitrary requirement that "small" means ten or, preferably, fewer lines. Short forms that do have more rules like haiku, tanka, American Sentence, cinquain, and so on are, of course, acceptable. While technically "small," I would discourage primarily humorous forms such as the limerick, clerihew, or double dactyl, as all have their own threads. But if you really want to post a limerick, etc. go ahead and do so. I don't want to discourage anyone from posting whatever they've written that meets the ten lines or fewer requirement.
Here are various example of what would qualify including, to start, one I wrote yesterday:
Cattle Point, 7 AM
Oystercatchers scramble
over the barren rocks
looking to pry limpets,
flip them like pancakes
for breakfast.
Unlike pancakes,
no syrup—just brine.
In a Station of the Metro
Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
3:00 AM
Billy Collins
Only my hand
is asleep,
but it's a start.
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Their Sex Life
A.R. Ammons
One failure on
Top of another.
Elegy
W.S. Merwin
Who would I show it to
Feel free to post your own small poems or post small poems you're fond of by other poets.
Like the haiku, which is of course a form of small poem, the small poem is brief not only in length but in imagery and theme. The poet simply doesn't have enough words to do more than tackle a single theme, a single comment, a single image. The resulting strength is that the poem is of necessity focused—one can't wander about too much in ten lines or less. That is, at least for me, one of its great attractions; each word must truly count.
In Collins' definition "the small poem has no rules except to be small. Its length, or lack of it, is the only formal requirement." I would add the arbitrary requirement that "small" means ten or, preferably, fewer lines. Short forms that do have more rules like haiku, tanka, American Sentence, cinquain, and so on are, of course, acceptable. While technically "small," I would discourage primarily humorous forms such as the limerick, clerihew, or double dactyl, as all have their own threads. But if you really want to post a limerick, etc. go ahead and do so. I don't want to discourage anyone from posting whatever they've written that meets the ten lines or fewer requirement.
Here are various example of what would qualify including, to start, one I wrote yesterday:
Cattle Point, 7 AM
Oystercatchers scramble
over the barren rocks
looking to pry limpets,
flip them like pancakes
for breakfast.
Unlike pancakes,
no syrup—just brine.
In a Station of the Metro
Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
3:00 AM
Billy Collins
Only my hand
is asleep,
but it's a start.
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Their Sex Life
A.R. Ammons
One failure on
Top of another.
Elegy
W.S. Merwin
Who would I show it to
Feel free to post your own small poems or post small poems you're fond of by other poets.
