Playing with Form

About two years ago, I published another collection of poetry in which I responded to a different poetry prompt each day for one month, and then used the collected poems to create a book. A few of the prompts led me to discover new poetry forms of which I'd never even heard! That led me to come up with the idea for this book - a book all about trying, playing with, new and different forms of poetry. Almost every form of poetry shown in this book is one I've never used before, and most are ones I never heard of prior to this project. After my research, there are still over a hundred more recorded forms of poetry, but I have heard of (and tried) many of those. I may revisit this idea and do another volume with different poetry forms than I used in this book at a later time, but for this one, I chose the ones I found most interesting.

In addition to trying new poetry forms in this book, I am also debuting a new poetry form! In all of my "playing with form," I had the idea to develop my very own form, and that became the "Pentaquery." You can find it as the last form in the book. I really hope you enjoy it and give it a try yourself!

For each of the forms I've used in this book, I've provided a brief background and/or information about rules for the poem. That will allow you to have an awareness of the guidelines I had to follow when crafting the poem you are reading. It will also give you the opportunity to try creating a poem of that form yourself!

Even more than my previous three books of poetry, I think this one shows my range as a poet and the variety of topics which I tackle. I hope all readers - new and returning - find meaning and enjoyment in the pages that follow.