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.

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.