Poetic form is more flexible in modernist and post-modernist poetry, and continues to be less structured than in previous literary eras. Many modern poets avoid recognisable structures or forms, and write in free verse. Some regard for basic formal structures of poetry will be found in even the best free verse, however much such structures may appear to have been ignored. Similarly, in the best poetry written in classic styles there will be departures from strict form for emphasis or effect.

Among major structural elements used in poetry are the line, the stanza or verse paragraph, and larger combinations of stanzas or lines such as cantos (I sing). Also sometimes used are broader visual presentations of words and calligraphy. These basic units of poetic form are often combined into larger structures, called poetic forms or poetic modes, as in the sonnet or haiku.

Lines and stanzas
Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a *couplet (or distich), three lines a triplet (or tercet), four lines a quatrain, five lines a quintain (or cinquain), six lines a sestet, and eight lines an octet. These lines may or may not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm. For example, a couplet may be two lines with identical metres which rhyme or two lines held together by a common metre alone. Stanzas often have related couplets or triplets within them.

With the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the mass-produced visual presentations of their work. Visual elements have become an important part of the poet’s toolbox, and many poets have sought to use visual presentation for a wide range of purposes. Some Modernist poets have made the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page an integral part of the poem’s composition. At times, this complements the poem’s rhythm through visual caesuras of various lengths, or creates juxtapositions so as to accentuate meaning, ambiguity or irony, or simply to create an aesthetically pleasing form. In its most extreme form, this can lead to concrete poetry or asemic writing. (caesura = denotes an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse).

Modern Forms
Blank Verse should not be confused with free verse which has no definite metre. Blank verse is simply unrhymed verse with a regular metre. Metre is the name of the regular system of the alternation of accented and unaccented syllables. One of the easiest ways to remember this system is to think in terms of TUM-ti, or ti-TUM. e.g “We reQUIRE running WATer and BATHtubs and SHOWers.”

Free Verse: The main feature of free verse is that traditional rhythm is abandoned. The regular line rhythm based on metre is replaced by the natural rhythms and cadences of ordinary speech, so that the flow of the verse rises and falls at random as do the poet’s thoughts and emotions. Rhyme is also frequently abandoned but other poetic devices such as alliteration, assonance etc., are generally retained.

Variations of form
*The Couplet
The following poem is commonly called an Ezra Pound couplet. Pound’s couplet gives a glimpse of something deeper about life. Compares two images and one illuminates the other. It gives an exact image of a moment. No rhyme, no metre, few words. Lines are a 14/7 syllable count.  It also rhymes and therefore is a heroic couplet.

In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd,
Petals on a wet, black bough

The Dress   
        Robert Adamson
There is a dress left hanging its fabric
still bright it remains where she left it

at the far corner of the bedroom
in the white wardrobe

each day I open it and look
nothing changes it hangs there crisp

with light she wore it
a few times last spring and has left

not knowing the meanings I would draw
from her casual act

I tell friends it is the dress once
worn by a woman who was killed in

a traffic accident and it was left forgotten
the night she hurried to her death

it is an evening dress make of silk
a pale blue coloured by a print on the skirt

of an abstract wing in darker blue
styled for a young woman

in an almost classic pattern except for its high
bust line and the sudden waist

I have not touched it since the last time
she wore it nobody has touched it

since the night she stopped being
my wife the night

I wanted to kill her lover in the panic
of losing what I had come to think of as love (c)

A Writing Exercise for You: From the following images create your couplet. You can write as many as you wish. They do not necessarily have to rhyme. eg. Raking the sand; Collecting shells; A goldfish; Figs in a bucket; Cars on the freeway; A rock slide; A whale on the shore; Cottons in a box, A coastline, Rocky mountain, A bicycle. The following samples are similar to an Ezra Pound couplet.

A bunny stamping its foot
A child waiting at the bus stop

A cat in a fish bowl
A child locked in her room

 A squirrel skydiving
 My life in free fall

Students collecting their lunches
Elephants in a stampede

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