Form in Poetry - what's it all about?

When you are writing about form you ought not panic, they're poems. That's the form.  Poetry is different to prose as the poet decides exactly how the poem looks on the page, line length and separation between stanzas.  If you mention structure then you might well be looking at form too.

However, there are specific forms of poetry and this post might help you with them.

• Flag - John Agard (foundation named poem) - this is similar to a shape poem as the lines are set out in such a way that the middle line is shorter which makes you think of a pennant flag which represents the 'Flag' in the title.  Also, the three line form might remind us of the tricolour set out pof many world flags (think France or the Netherlands).
• Extract of Out of the Blue - Simon Armitage - this is a dramatic monologue where Armitage adopts the voice and persona of an imaginary trader in the World Trade Centre.  This gives the poem a personal quality and makes the nature of the tragedy much closer.  We 'hear' the voice of someone who perished in 9/11 speaking directly to us.
• Mametz Wood - Owen Sheers - we could say that this poem is an elegy - a tribute to the dead soldiers.
• The Yellow Palm - Robert Mihinnick - this poem is a ballad.  Ballads are a traditional form of poetry which tend develop a story about ordinary people or a tragedy (think the ballads you did in KS3 - The Highwayman, The Ballad of Charlotte Dymond, The Pied Piper of Hamelin).  An important feature of a ballad is a refrain 'As I walked down Palestine Street' and repeated ideas - e.g. colour in each stanza. This ballad form is appropriate to tell the tragedy of the ordinary people of Baghdad in the aftermath of 'The Mother of All Wars'.
• At The Border 1979 - Choman Hardi -  does not have a set poetic form and the fractured and uneven nature of the poem's structure reflects the sense of dislocation that the refugees have.  They do not 'belong' anywhere just as the poem does not 'belong' in a set form.
• Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson - also does not have a form. The lines are a mixture of lengths in order to reflect the confusion of the bomb exploding.
• Poppies - Jane Weir - the poem could be said to be an elegy to the persona's son but this reading would depend on you feeling that the son has died - this is ambiguous and can be interpreted either way.  It seems to have a regular line length etc but within there is caesura that reflects someone appearing to be coping on the outside but being broken within.
• Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  Arguably this poem is an Ode, a classical type of poem that  is lyrical (meant to be read aloud) and commemorates heroic figures - 'the Six Hundred'.
• Futility - Wilfred Owen - this poem has 14 lines which is the classical form of the sonnet. However, Owen changes the structure within Futility to be unlike a sonnet (which usually rhymes ababcdcdcefefgg) which maybe represents that sense of Futility and lost hope in the poem.  Sonnets are usually love poems and here the question is what is loved: life? the soldier?
• Bayonet Charge - Ted Hughes - this poem does not have a set classical form which may reflect the confusion of being hurled into battle.
• Come On, Come Back - Stevie Smith - this poem is written in free verse where there is no regularity to the stanzas or lines. This reflects the inner confusion of the persona, Vaudevue. It may also represent the 'Future War' where traditional forms have now been lost.
• Next to of course god America I - e.e.cummings - like Come On. Come Back this poem is written in free verse and contains snippets of a number of patriotic songs.  However, it is in 14 lines and therefore could be seen to be a love poem, ironically as it is about 'love' of America.
• Hawk Roosting - Ted Hughes - this poem does not appear to have a traditional form but does have a regular structure which may represent the strength of the bird at the centre of it.