 Poetry: September 21, 2005 Issue [#623] |
  Poetry
This week: Edited by: John~Ashen  
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Poetry! It comes in all styles and meanings. Some poems express personal feelings; others demonstrate a particular pattern. Most of us write some combination in between. I'll be offering advice on different styles and pointing out techniques to improve your poems. Enjoy  --John~Ashen |
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Nonce Poetry Forms
A week ago, someone reviewing my poem ("Invalid Item" ) left this questioning comment: "Is this a nonce form? If it is, it's well done. I like the way this form looks on the monitor--it looks nice and clean."
Nonce form? I had never heard of that before! Off to the dictionary and Google I went. As it turns out, "nonce" comes from the medieval expression for the nonce, meaning "for the one time." Thus a nonce word is a word used for a special circumstance only. Similarly, a nonce poetry form is one created for one unique occasion.
Indeed, I did use a special and definite style in my poem. It's AABB rhyme scheme, with the middle two lines of each stanza twice as long as the outer lines. Also, the middle two lines share a starting word. Then, as a bonus, all the "short" lines can be pulled out to create a prose paragraph. How's that for unique? It came to me while I was writing the poem, but I forgot all about it once I was done. That is, until some smart reviewer pointed out the technical term for doing that! Ahhh, the satisfaction of learning something new. Thank you, dear reader.
Nonce forms cannot be just anything you write. It's not free verse! The poetry must have a distinctive form, meter, and scheme. If you've ever entered a "create your own form" contest, you have created a nonce form.
One interesting thing to note is that all forms were once nonce. A long time ago, someone decided to write 14-line poems with a measured meter and predetermined rhyme scheme. After enough people copied the style, poof!, the sonnet became a popular form, no longer nonce. Same thing for haiku, limerick, and any other standard form of poetry.
Therefore, don't be afraid to experiment with newly-invented poetry forms. They're nonce today, but they just might be the popular form of the future.  |
Some interesting one-time formats :
A contest for flexing your format muscles :
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