Introduction
Form in poetry refers to the physical structure of the poem. This can mean the length of lines, the repetition, the rhyming, and the system of the rhymes. When these features have been organized into a recognizable pattern, then they can be described to belong to a certain form. The commonest forms of poems include sonnets, villanelles, blank verses, and sestinas. The form of a poem aids the poet in expressing the theme and the feelings that accompany the poet’s expression.
Form of a poem can be the manner of the complexity of the poem. The poem can be simple and open-ended such as a blank verse or it can also be complex system of rhythms, rhymes and repetitions of lines and words within a certain number of fixed lines such as is the case in sonnets and villanelles. As such, form gives the readers or the analyst a chance to explain the “shape” of the poem. Taking a poem to have the regular shapes, the poem can have straightforward shapes such as triangle, rectangle, or square. This elaborates the simplicity of poems that have simple and open-ended forms. The poem can also have a complicated form comparable to the irregular and complex shapes of geographical maps.
The form of a poem gives it appeal to the readers. The organization of the words helps the poet to deliver a message or to express him/herself in a manner that the intended audience can understand. The poems “God Grandeur” by Gerald Manley Hopkins and Langston Hughes “The Midwinter Blues” are classic poems that bear different forms and which elaborate on the importance of form in a poem’s expression.
Gerald Manley’s poem “God Grandeur” is a sonnet. A sonnet (from Italian word “sonnet”) means “a little sound or song”. Traditionally, a sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that has been written in iambic pentameter employing one of the several rhyme schemes. This form of poems also adheres to a tightly structured thematic organization. There are two types of sonnets, the Shakespearean, and the Petrarchan poems. The main difference between the two types us the subdivision of the lines. The Shakespearean sonnets comprise of three quatrains followed by a couplet. The Shakespearean sonnets are not subdivided into stanzas. Petrarchan poems have two stanzas; the octave (first eight lines) followed by a set of six answering lines (sestet).
Gerald Manley’s poem “God Grandeur” is a Petrarchan sonnet. The poem comprises of two stanzas if eight and six lines respectively. The first eight lines state the grandeur nature of God. In the first part, the poet marvels at the nature of God comparing God’s greatness to several things such as shining of foil when shaken. He also compares God’s greatness to oozing of crushed oil. As such, the form of the poem gives the poet to state the issues to which s/he seeks responses. The poet has a chance to pour out their heart in a simple and straightforward manner.
In addition, the first part of Gerald Manley’s poem “God Grandeur” mentions of how people react to the nature of God. As is the nature and form of Petrarchan sonnets, the poet wonders why people do not recognize the grandeur and greatness of God, “why do men now not reck his rod?” (Hopkins, 1st stanza, 4th line).
The poem has simple rhyming all along. The poem rhymes the words “foil” and “oil” at the end of second and third lines. It also rhymes the words “rod” and “trod” at the end of the fourth and fifth lines. In the subsequent sixth and seventh lines, the poet repeats the rhyming of the letters “oil” through the words “toil” and “soil”. The sixth lines have some simple and easy to identify rhyming of the words “seared, bleared and smeared”. In the last part of the poem, the words “things”, rhymes with “springs” and “wings” in the last line. Notably, the rhymes in the last part appear in alternate lines thereby creating a noticeable pattern and setting this stanza of the poem apart from the first stanza of the poem. This kind of rhyming makes the poem captivating and interesting to read. It enhances the understanding of the poem. The reader is likely to reread the poem to ascertain that the words ‘”toil” and “soil” have not been repeated in the previous lines, and this enhance the understanding of the poem.
The poem also has some similes. There is ample comparison. The poet uses the word “like” in a couple of instances, “like shining from shook oil”, “like the ooze of oil” (Hopkins, 1st stanza, 2nd and 3rd lines). These instances help to create mental images in the minds of the readers and hence the elaboration or expression of the poem. The readers can relate the greatness of God to things that they can see in real life such as foils and oils. The repetition evident in the fifth line, “generations have trod, have trod, have trod” serves to place emphasis. The line shows that indeed people in the world have trod or walked a lot without realizing the greatness of God.
The Petrarchan sonnets to which Manley’s poem belongs are used to present arguments, observations, questions, arguments, or some other answerable charges. The form allows for a volta or a turn to occur between the eighth and ninth lines. In this poem, which has a religious theme, the poet raises some assertions about the greatness of God in the first lines of the first stanza. In the ninth line the poet states, “and for all this, nature is never spent” (Hopkins, 2nd stanza, 1st line). This statement seems to respond to the preceding observations that in spite of God’s greatness, many people seem not to revere God as they are supposed. The line asserts that God continues to rule and sustain nature and the people therein.
Langston Hughes poem “Midwinter Blues” is a free verse poem. Free verse poems do not require any specific rhyming, meter or scheme. The poems that are written to mirror this form usually employ other creative languages such as alliteration and repetition. Langston’s poem appears as a sestina since it has six lines per stanza but again it fails to be a complete sestina because it has only four stanzas and not six. The poem has ne outstanding feature- repetition. The poem repeats every the first and second lines in the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas. As such, the poem’s form assumes a unique pattern, which becomes predictable as one reads on. The repetition serves to place emphasis on the each word and line in the poem. The more the emphasis on each of the lines, the more the poet enhances understanding among the readers.
Langston’s poem has the theme of “love”. The theme of the poem comes out as a woman who is cynical about the live that she receives from her man. She laments that her man left her during the winter when it was seemingly cold, and she needed her close to her side. The woman states that there was “snow all over the groundtwas the night before Christmasmy good man turned me down” (Hughes, 1st stanza, 1st and 2nd lines). As such, a woman is bitter for having been left behind during Christmas.
Since the narrator of the poem is explaining things that are almost unbelievable, the form of the poem allows her to pace emphasis on her lamentations. The repetition of the lines allows the women to repeat each issue as she wishes. This serves to let her express her bitterness at the betrayal and the pain she feels. Moreover, the repetition allows the women to adopt a cynical attitude to the betrayal and pain that she feels. The evidence of the pain that the woman feels is evident. She concludes the poem saying that she would, but herself a rose bud and plant it at the back door so that when she dies, those who attend to her will not need flowers from her store.
The poem “Midwinter Blues” takes a simplistic form that serves to elaborate on the otherwise simple symbolism therein. The poet states that the man left when the “coal was low” (Hughes, 2nd stanza, 2nd and 4th lines). This is an imagery meaning that the men left when the winter had taken toll on her, and she had used her fuel probably to beat the cold winter. Further, the woman state, “now, if a man loves a woman, that ain’t the time to go” (Hughes, the second stanza, 5th and 6th lines). The manner in which the symbolism comes across is subtle and clear. The supposed symbol becomes clear as one reads on thereby making the poem interesting while the theme of the poem becomes clearer.
It is evident that the form a poem takes aids to help the poet express several things. The poet expresses his/her dissatisfaction or delight with an issue. The poems “God Grandeur” by Gerald Manley Hopkins and Langston Hughes “The Midwinter Blues” are classic poems that bear different forms and which elaborate on the importance of for in a poem’s expression. The form of Manley’s poem, which is a Petrarchan sonnet, allows the poet to raise the issues about God’s greatness in the first stanza of eight lines. In the second part, it allows the poet to assert on the greatness of Go in spite of people’s failure to recognize God’s grandeur. Langston’s poem is a free verse poem that bears notable patterns of simple repetition of the first and second lines in the third and fourth lines. This repetition aids the women narrator to place emphasis on the abandonment or betrayal that she faced from her man at a time that she needed the man most. The poem’s form allows cynicism and enhances clarity among the readers of the poem.
References
Hopkins G. M., ‘God’s Grandeur’, from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, p. 144.
Hughes L. ‘Midwinter Blues’, from Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, pp 33 and 151
