Debbie Redford presented the most enchanting poem at our last chapter meeting. The imagery her words created was rich, and oh, so satisfying. She posed the question, "Does a poem have to rhyme?" Well, no, it does not.

The design or pattern of a poem is called form. All poetry has some type of form, even the most experimental poetry. Allen Ginsberg's A supermarket in California was quite unconventional in its time. It didn't read like poetry. It does, however, have a certain form to it. It is an example of Open form. Open form gives a freedom of pattern to the poet. Open form poems do not have to rhyme, although they can. Open form poetry is not confined to any meter. Open form poets can arrange the words however they choose. Open form poetry has almost a natural conversation feel to it, as if the poet were speaking directly to you or as if the poet were thinking aloud and you were privy to his thoughts. Some say that Open form is a type of modern poetry, but consider Emily Dickinson. She lived from 1830 - 1886 and is one of the greatest Open form poets.

Closed form poetry is easily recognizable. There are certain rules that must be followed. The poem must have an exact number of lines. It must have a rhyme scheme, and/or meter. Meter is the pattern of stressed or accented words within a line of verse. Iambic meter is when the syllables in the words alternate between stressed and unstressed. A line of poetry with ten syllables of rising and falling stresses is known as iambic pentameter. An iambic foot is when one stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable. An iambic pentameter has five groups of two syllables, or ten beats, to the line. Some line-lengths in closed form poetry are:

• monometer: one foot with two syllables to the line
• dimeter: two feet, four syllables
• trimeter: three feet, six syllables
• tetrameter: four feet, eight syllables
• pentameter: five feet, ten syllables
• hexameter: six feet, twelve syllables
• heptameter: seven feet, fourteen syllables
• octameter: eight feet, sixteen syllables

A few foot names worth knowing are:

• anapest: marked UU/, (which means unstressed, unstressed, stressed) UU/UU/UU/UU/  "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house…"
• trochee: marked /U/U/U/U  "Double double toil and trouble…"
• dactyl: marked /UU/UU/UU/UU  "Take her up tenderly…"

The sonnet, a well-known type of Closed form poetry, sometimes referred to as fixed form, always has 14 lines. There are two types of sonnets—the Petrarchan or Italian, and the Shakespearean or English. The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two groups—the octave (eight lines) and the sestet (six lines), for a total of fourteen lines. The Shakespearean sonnet has three groups of four lines (quatrain), and two rhyming lines (couplet), for a total of fourteen lines.

There's much more to learn about poetry, but time and space do not permit.