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.

Conflict Poetry - some great resources

This video covers the heritage poems in the conflict cluster

And this covers the contemporary poems

 

This channel on Youtube revises all of the poems in the conflict cluster: take a look!

And this explains how the poems can be compared with each other:

Of course BBC Bitesize is always brilliant for revising: particularly for poetry and the conflict cluster

If you prefer videos then Cherwell Online's YouTube channel is well worth a look.

And you can get all the poems annotated at the appropriately named Get Revising!

And what the examiner is looking for at Malmesbury School's blog

And this is what some students at Wildern School achieved.

Finally, you have your anthology, exercise book, revision guide and your own interpretation skills.

Good luck!

Bayonet Charge

AO1 respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

First watch this dramatisation of the poem

You should DEFINITELY read this presentation which develops explanation of the poem, is thoroughly annotated and is very useful to read alongside the BBC Bitesize revision section. 

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

Structure: the poem is in three stanzas and we start in the middle of  the 'Bayonet Charge' with the words 'Suddenly' (the same word that starts 'Belfast Confetti') which hurls the reader into the confusion of the battle without any warning. We get the sense of urgency and confusion of the solider as he heads 'over the top' and across the battlefield. The use of the enjambment in the first stanza gives the reader the sense of urgency and running as does the repetition of 'raw...raw'; it's as if the soldier does not have time to think through what is happening to him.

The second stanza is almost in slow-motion: the soldier realises where he is and what is happening to him and it seems unreal 'in bewilderment then he almost stopped -', the use of the hyphen underlines this confusion. He is continuing to run but the experience feels unreal to him 'in what cold clockwork of the stars and nations was he the hand pointing that second?' 

The final stanza shows the dawning realisation of the danger he is in: 'his terror's touchy dynamite'. Throughout the poem enjambment is used to give the sense of running: the lines lead into the next but the sense of confusion and conflict is caused by caesuras within the lines which break up the flow and give the sense of halting breathing:

He was running

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Notice, the caesura after 'statuary in mid stride.' which reflects the sense of stopping but them immediately the stanza uses enjambment to move into the final stanza, showing that he cannot stop.

Language:
repetition: 'raw, in raw-seamed hot khaki'
simile: 'He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm'
physicality: 'sweat heavy', 'stumbling', 'dazzled' 'Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest'.
Irony and bitter tone in listing: 'King, honour, human dignity, etcetera'

Nature versus conflict: 'Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge/That dazzled with rifle fire' and 'Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame / And crawled in a threshing circle'
Sibilance 'shot-slashed furrows'
Metaphor 'Bullets smacking the belly out of the air'

Context

Ted Hughes was a poet from Yorkshire and this poem was written in the 1960s but seems to be a homage to World War 1 (in which his father fought) or to the poetry of Wilfred Owen. Hughes is best known as a nature poet (see 'Hawk Roosting') and there are elements of nature in this poem but, unusually for Hughes, it is clearly about a man's experience.

Poppies

AO1 respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations

Jane Weir reading her own poem

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

The poem is called 'Poppies' which links to the wearing of the poppy on Remembrance Sunday which is referred to in the poem by 'Three days before Armistice Sunday'.  This reference might link the poem to World War 1 which is where the idea of the poppy as a remembrance flower came from or to all succeeding wars which are commemorated on Armistice Sunday (the nearest Sunday to 11th November each year).

Structure: 


The poem has four irregular stanzas and does not have a fixed rhyme scheme but at times does have limited rhyme (graze my nose/across the tip of your nose/play at being Eskimos) and the end rhyme of tree/me/busy in stanza three giving a sense of the persona being 'led' from the bedroom to the churchyard. 

Generally, we would say that the lines use enjambment to lead through the poem but often there are caesuras mid-line (commas or fullstops) which stops the flow of the poem.  The effect could be that on the surface the mother is calm but is broken and stopped up inwardly by her sorrow.

There is a sense of the passing of time in the poem 'Three days before Armistice Sunday' ... 'Before you Left' ... 'After you'd gone' ... 'Later' ... 'this is where it has led me'. 

Language

Metaphor - clothing as a metaphor: 'lapel', 'blazer','Selloptape bandaged around my hand/ I rounded up as many cat hairs as I could', 'smoothed down your shirt's upturned collar' for the care for her son. Her inability to tell him how she feels 'all my words flattened, rolled, turned into felt'. Also for her anguish: 'my stomach busy making tucks, darts, pleats' and her carelessness for her own well-being after he's gone 'hat-less, without a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.'.

Semantic field of war - 'blockade', 'bandaged', 'single dove', 'reinforcements' and 'war memorial'.

Metaphor - 'the gelled blackthorns of your hair'

Simile - 'leaned against it like a wishbone'

Childhood - 'like we did when you were little' and 'hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind'

Death - 'individual war graves', 'skirting the church yard walls' and 'war memorial'

Birds - 'released a song bird from its cage', 'a single dove flew from the pear tree' and 'the dove pulled freely against the sky, an ornamental stitch'.

Alternative interpretations: is the son dead? Could we see the poem in more than one way?

Conflict between mother's love and son's need to grow up 'treasure chest', 'intoxicated', 'resisted the impulse'.
AO3 make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects

Consider other poems that refer to nature, grief, children, death.

AO4 relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different times

This poem was written by Jane Weir a modern poet who says she was influenced by Wilfred Owen's mother.  However, it appears to be set in a modern conflict rather than in World War 1 as it refers to more modern items such as 'sellotape'.  The conflict is not referred to explicitly, maybe meaning that this is a timeless feeling for mothers who have lost their sons to war. 

Jane Weir herself is a modern poet and textiles artist who utilises her textiles knowledge in her poetry. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade Alfred Tennyson

AO1 Respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to  illustrate and support interpretations

Firstly, watch and read this interpretation

 

And then this one which demonstrates the metre and rhythm better

An explanation of what it means

AO2 explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings

A very useful video on language, structure and form

Important language techniques to note:

• anaphora (the repetition of the same words at the beginning of lines) 'Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards'; 'Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die' and 'Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them'
• onomatopoeia, alliterations and sibilance giving the sense of the noise of battle: 'volley'd and thunder'd, storm'd at with shot and shell' and 'shatter'd and sunder'd' 
• religious imagery: 'mouth of Hell' and 'valley of Death' from Psalm 23 which was often read at funerals
• metaphor: 'jaws of death' and 'mouth of Hell'
• rhyme and rhythm: sound like the thundering hooves of the charge and seems unstoppable like the charge
• End-stopped stanzas gives a sense of finality
• Repetition 'six hundred' - gives a sense of all the men and the scale of the sacrifice

Alternative interpretations:

Note all the times that we get a sense of being trapped and enclosed - there is no way out.

Note the heroism

Note the quiet and hidden criticism of the leadership 'wild charge', 'someone had blundered'

Note the impact that these men's sacrifice will have on history (posterity)

Note the fierceness of the battle 

Difficult vocabulary

half a league - a mile and a half (an old-fashioned measure of distance)

blunder'd - made a huge mistake (blundered)

sabres - a curved sword

cavalry - soldiers who fight on horseback

Cossacks - Russian cavalry (the enemy of the British)

Volley'd - a verb (volleyed) which suggests sending a lot of missiles across the battlefield

AO3 make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluating writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects

Which poems could we compare it to: sacrifice, bravery and war?


AO4 relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been  influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different times

The poem was written by Tennyson as Poet Laureate.  The Poet Laureate is an official role in Britain where the greatest poet of the day is asked to write for the nation.  Therefore, at a time of war, the Poet Laureate might be expected to be patriotic and to write from a British perspective, as he does here in a poem which was written only six weeks after the battle itself.  The war was the Crimean War (1853-1856, which we remember best as the war where Florence Nightingale changed medicine) which was fought in the Black Sea region of Russia.  Primarily, it was a religious war between Turkey and Russia and Britain got involved because we were concerned that the Russian invasion would cut off our route from Europe to India. The actual charge of the Light Brigade was a military disaster which has been the source of much controversy ever since as a lightly armed cavalry (horse-riding) division were sent into battle against cannon with predictable results.  Tennyson recognises this failure 'some one had blunder'd' but instead focuses on the gallantry and bravery of the Light Brigade and their glorious sacrifice 'When can their glory fade?' and 'Honour the Light Brigade, Noble Six Hundred!'. Indeed, this poem has succeeded in future generations being aware of this battle but probably unaware of the fact it was a failure.