Rhetorical Forms 2

Definition: The form of poetry by which a poet takes existing prose or poetry and removes portions of it to create a new work.

History: It first started being used in the 1960s and 1970s and continued to be used to the present day.

Examples: A notable instance is Ronald Johnson's Radi Os, which is a revision of the first four books of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Other examples include Jen Bervin's Nets, built from Shakespeare's sonnets.

Here is Chloe Honum's St. Mary's Home for Unwed Mothers in Otahuhu, Auckland, which is an erasure from the history section of the Anglican Trust for Women and Children's website:

a      constant danger—

people who desire

                                 exceptional experience

in     controlling     girls

                                            nature and scope of work

and        milk 

While few resources exist to explore this form of poetry, one source to check out is the Poets website.

(Written by Gabriel Cowley)

• Cowboy Poetry, interestingly enough, stems from the storytelling often associated with cowboys but through a poetic medium. I have read mixed defintions, although, in which one site also claimed that cowboy poetry is done by someone who has done a task very well and understands the hardships entailed. 

• A popular cowboy poet is noneother than Joel Nelson, who also was said to have been a very talented horse trainer. One of his best known poems is "Trapped"

• Trapped

Waiting all alone

Fear gripping his insides

The soldier waits for them to come

Bringing with them

 What he knows will be his death

The others have all left

For safer ground they say

They explained it was of courage

As they pay tribute to his memory

When really it was of fear

The soldier waits in the tower

Sweat dripping as the enemies approach

He waits and watches in hidden safety

Screaming within his mind

His muscles pull taught with determination

As he decides how he will face his death

Charging in he screams,

As the bullets hit

DEFINITION: A poetic form that addresses a collection of physical features or attributes, typically associated with a lover.

HISTORY: The history of the blazon can be traced back to the thirteenth century, where it was made popular in Petrach’s work “Rime Sparse”.

EXAMPLE: An example can be found in the tenth stanza of “Epithalamium” by Edmund Spenser.

Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,
Her forehead ivory white,
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breasts like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,
Her paps like lilies budded,
Her snowy neck like to a marble tower,
And all her body like a palace fair.

SOURCE: https://poets.org/glossary/blazon 

Definition: The use of different literary elements, such as irony or hyperbole, to make a commentary on some social, political, historical, or myriad other issues.

There are three subsets of satire (Definitions come from here)

Horatian- “Horatian satire is comic and offers light social commentary. It is meant to poke fun at a person or situation in an entertaining way.”

Juvenalian- “Juvenalian satire is dark, rather than comedic. It is meant to speak truth to power.”

Menippean- “Menippean satire casts moral judgment on a particular belief, such as homophobia or racism. It can also use the tone from either of the former types”

History: Several sources indicated that satire is very old and that the word comes from several different Latin roots.

Tips: Lay into elements like hyperbole and irony when trying to make satire.

Examples:

Karl Klaus’s (Austrian Poet) poem “Der sterbende Soldat” (The Dying Soldier)

Billy Collins: “Sonnet” which pokes fun at the Sonnet form (In CAP) 

Definition: "An epigram is a short and witty statement, usually written in verse, that conveys a single thought or observation. Epigrams typically end with a punchline or a satirical twist. Epigrams tend to rhyme because it makes them more memorable, but as with all rules (especially when it comes to poetry) there are exceptions."

www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/epigram

History: "The word 'epigram' comes from the Greek epigraphein, meaning 'to write on, inscribe,' and originally referred to the inscriptions written on stone monuments in ancient Greece. The first-century epigrams of the Roman poet Martial became the model for the modern epigram."

https://poets.org/glossary/epigram

Famous Poem/Poet Example: "Blake's poem "Auguries of Innocence" contains many couplets and quatrains with pithy observations, such as the concluding stanza excerpted below. Although it's part of a much longer poem, some people would consider this stanza to be epigrammatic."

"God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day."

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/epigram

Definition: a form of performance poetry in which the reader uses strong writing and voice, animation, and audience participation in order to turn a piece of poetry into a livelier experience

History: a poet from Chicago, Illinois named Marc Kelly Smith invented slam poetry in the 1980s, saying that poetry reading were losing their passion, and slam poetry became his effort to revive the act of reading poetry by exaggerating their liveliness through performance. The word slam comes from a weekly event that he would hold called the poetry slam, in which poets would perform their work and be judged on a scale of 1 to 10.

Tips and Tricks: this form of poetry is interesting, because in theory, any poem can be slam poetry. However, there is a conversion that has to happen in order to change your poem from a simple poem, to one that can be performed. You have to be animated when reciting your poem, so when the poem is moving, you are also moving. This is one element of slam poetry that is especially effective: you can exaggerate what you want your audience to get from your poem through the strength of your voice and the energy of your movement. There is also an aspect of slam poetry in which a poet can invite the audience to participate in its recitation. This part becomes a little trickier, depending on the circumstances in which the poem is being performed. If audience members have text to refer to when you perform your poem, it becomes quite easy for them to follow along and speak when invited to speak. However, if you are the sole source of poetry that they have available to them during the performance, you will have to create scenarios through the poetry you write in which audience members can participate without having a script to refer to. It is a tricky aspect of slam poetry, but one that can breathe a lot of life into your work.

Famous Poets/Poems: After learning about what slam poetry was, I realized that I've seen it many times before. There are poetry slam competitions that still exists today, and there are many talented poets that participate in it. One poem that I distinctly remember that I can now assign the term slam poetry to is "21" by Patrick Roche, who uses the medium so masterfully to take a poem that was already powerful and gives it so much more emotion. The link to his performance is below.

https://youtu.be/6LnMhy8kDiQ?si=qYPEy7ChHMZJDd9P