Tags
#ReadWomen2014, Andrew Wynn Owen, C.A. LaRue, craft essay, Crooked Roads, Formal Verse, formalism, ghazal, Mezzo Cammin, new formalism, poetry movements, Rambling Rose Kelleher, Raspberries for the Ferry, received form, Sabotage Reviews, sestina, silk-ribbon bondage of the sonnet, sonnet, The Emma Press, The Review Review, Unsplendid, Venues for Formal Poetry, villanelle, Women and Form, women poets
Skip on over to Sabotage Reviews (UK) where I recently analyzed the young Andrew Wynn Owen’s little gem Raspberries for the Ferry from The Emma Press.
And then pour through the resources, archives and stellar latest issue at Mezzo Cammin, an online journal devoted to formal poetry by women. I mentioned it briefly in speaking about the also gorgeous online formalist mag Unsplendid for The Review Review back in 2013.
Unsplendid‘s latest issue is not only a double issue, but dedicated entirely to women+ form. Perfect for the last days of #ReadWomen2014!!
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Finally, if you’re a poet writing in received forms yourself (sestina, ghazal, villanelle, sonnet, etc…), use (Rambling) Rose Kelleher‘s handy-dandy VENUES FOR FORMAL POETRY submission guide. (Send updates to the email on her blog.)
Rose also has an interesting essay up from A.E. Stallings called “Crooked Roads Without Improvement:Some Thoughts on Formal Verse” which features insights such as this little zinger…
For me, however, to rule out meter or rhyme as tools available to the poet is far more limiting than the playful, silk-ribbon bondage of the sonnet.
Enticing. Share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to see someone come up with a further reading list and/or a list of recommended formalist collections.
Bonespark~ 
Thanks for this! I love Stallings’ poetry. Perhaps the fact that Stallings experiences the form requirements of the sonnet as a “silk-ribbon bondage” goes to the root of the issue. It may be that the poetic establishment has been taken over by people for whom those requirements are intolerable chains. Or to put it another way, why outlaw quidditch unless you’re only competitive at the level of kickball?
I’m currently involved in starting up a journal that specifically seeks formal poems. I’ve published my own defense/explanation of the aesthetic rationale behind this revival here:
https://www.acadlit.org/does-the-journal-accept-formal-poem