Form

Frost’s quote, “I’d sooner write free verse as play tennis with the net down,” applies to both form and meter. For Frost, both were fundamental in crafting poetry. Understanding how much form meant to him is essential. Frost wrote:

“There is at least so much good in the world that it admits of form and the making of form. And not only admits of it, but calls for it. We people are thrust forward out of the suggestions of form in the rolling clouds of nature. In us, nature reaches its height of form and through us exceeds itself. When in doubt, there is always form for us to go on with. Anyone who has achieved the least form to be sure of it is lost to the larger excruciations. I think it must stroke faith the right way. The artist, the poet, might be expected to be the most aware of such assurance. But it is really everybody’s sanity to feel it and live by it. Fortunately, too, no forms are more engrossing, gratifying, comforting, staying than those lesser ones we throw off, like vortex rings of smoke, all our individual enterprise and needing nobody’s cooperation: a basket, a letter, a garden, a room, an idea, a picture, a poem. For these we don’t have to get a team together before we can play.”

Frost also wrote a short epigram called “Pertinax”:

“Let chaos storm!
Let cloud shapes swarm!
I wait for form.”

Form in poetry can be categorized under general terms of structure. Poems are typically classified as lyric, narrative, or dramatic. A lyric poem can be written in couplets, quatrains, or sestets. A narrative poem might be written in blank verse or continuous structure, such as “Birches.” There can even be dramatic narratives with lyric elements, like “Mending Wall.” Frost wrote in all these forms.

Lyric poetry is usually a short poem expressing personal thoughts and feelings. It is meditative and spoken by a single speaker about their feelings towards a person, object, event, or idea. Originally, lyric poetry was sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. Frost is primarily known as a lyric poet.

Examples:

“My November Guest” is a lyric poem written in five-line stanzas (quintets) with a tetrameter meter and an ABAAB rhyme scheme.
“Mowing” is a lyrical sonnet with an irregular rhyme pattern.
“A Late Walk” is a ballad-style lyric with alternating tetrameter and trimeter lines, rhyming the second and fourth lines in quatrains.

Narrative poetry tells a story through a progression unique to itself, featuring a rising action, climax, and falling action.

Examples:

“Out, Out” is a narrative in blank verse written in continuous structure (no stanzas, no breaks).
“Love and a Question” is a ballad written in eight-line stanzas (octaves).
“Brown’s Descent” is a humorous narrative with rhyming second and fourth lines in quatrains, using tetrameter.

Dramatic poems feature speaking characters, much like a play. These can include monologues, dialogues, and narratives. “The Death of the Hired Man” is often described as a dramatic narrative. Frost usually writes these in blank verse, with speeches that follow no stanzaic pattern but are metrical. His second book, “North of Boston,” is renowned for its dramatic pieces, many of which are patterned after Virgil’s Eclogues. Frost’s dramatic poems comprise some of his most acclaimed work.

To give form in poetry is to use organization, shapeliness, and fitness to the content of the poem. Form is structure. Frost believed that common verse forms are themselves metaphoric. A blank verse line lays down a direct line of image, thought, or sentiment. The couplet contrasts, compares, or parallels figures, ideas, and feelings. The quatrain combines two couplets alternatively. The sonnet provides a little drama in several scenes to a lyric sentiment. Poems fall into three main groups: Lyric, Narrative, and Dramatic, with three types of form based on layout:

Stanzaic: Lines are arranged into units separated by a space, usually with a recurrent pattern of meter and rhyme.
- Couplets: 2 lines, which must rhyme. Frost favored this form.
- Tercets: 3 lines, rarely used by Frost.
- Quatrains: 4 lines, most commonly used by Frost.
- Quintets: 5 lines, occasionally used.
- Sestets: 6 lines, occasionally used.
- Septets: 7 lines, never used.
- Octaves: 8 lines, occasionally used.
Fixed: Prescribed length and pattern based on tradition, such as the sonnet. The limerick is also a fixed form. Frost wrote this unpublished limerick for fun:”Mary had a little lamb
His name was Jesus Christ
And God, not Joseph, was the ram
But Joseph took it nice.”
- The Sonnet: Consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme scheme.
  - English (Shakespearean) Sonnet: 14 lines grouped in three quatrains followed by a rhymed couplet.
  - Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet: 14 lines divided into an octave and a sestet, each with distinct rhyme schemes.