How Important Is Structure in Poetry?

My photo of Emerald City, viewed from New Jersey

What makes a good poem?

One answer may lie in the intensity of every word.

And perhaps one way to wrangle intensity is through structure -- even if it's loose or derivative. The form might help a poet prune and focus.

Writing recently about ghosts, I drafted one as a "sonnet," although only in the sense that there are 10 syllables in each of its 14 lines.

Then I drafted another as a trilogy of Japanese death poems. These are often written in the form of a tanka -- 5 lines totaling 31 syllables (5-7-5-7-7).

Death poems should be emotionally neutral (according to Wikipedia), and "it is considered inappropriate to mention death explicitly; rather, metaphorical references such as... autumn or falling cherry blossom suggest the transience of life."

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Casual Ghosts

All my ghosts are casual, taking note

Of what inspires me to write, taunting

Me, sipping tea. We wander here and there,

Reading the classics in the afternoons.

Leaving this room for a minute or two,

I return to find pages blown open

To particular chapters meant for me.

Life lessons offered from beyond the grave.

As I re-read “The Catcher in the Rye”

Blithe spirits, steeped in the literature

Of murderous defense, cloud my judgement,

Call me phony, and judge my poetry.

So I write to manifest the undead

In the dissonance of unrhymed sonnets.

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In Memorium

I.

My last meal with Dad…

A cheap Italian restaurant,

With Mom, over-dressed.

Before his sunset, he spilled

Mashed potatoes on his tie.

II.

My last memory…

Mom’s napkin, wiping him clean

To the amusement

Of men dining in t-shirts.

Dad’s humiliated face.

III.

My retribution…

I will wear that tie again

After Mom’s last sleep.

It waits, hangs in my closet.

Dad’s ghost, indelibly stained.

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I don't know. More simply, I could match haikus with photos I've taken. Then, what I try to convey will be less dense and more relatable.

In that vein, I plan to post one haiku/image every Monday morning on Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads. I welcome you to join me there. I like to follow people back and learn from others, although I get discouraged by all the bots.

I posted my first haiku earlier this week, to accompany the image at the top of this page:

Wizards are sleeping

Emerald City at dawn

There's no place like home

If AI Wrote This Poem...

 

Allow me to explain this Microsoft AI-generated graphic.

Have you ever asked AI to generate a poem?

I do, sometimes. Here's an example:

AI, Write a Short Poem About My Wife's Birthday

Of all the gifts that life could give,
Your love is the one I cherish to live.
Today we celebrate the day you were born,
A heart so gentle, a spirit reborn.

With every laugh and every smile,
You light my world and make it worthwhile.
Happy Birthday, my love, my heart,
Together forever, never to part.

That's not what I gave her, of course. I could have bought a Hallmark card with as much genuine sentiment. Instead, I opted for my own creation:

Roses Are Red

And yellow and pink and white.

Violets are the color at the end of the visible spectrum of light.

Sugar is addictive.

And so are you.

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To me, poetry is not predictable. It's not homogenized. It's not easy.

I was thinking of this while watching TV on a recent Saturday morning, flipping past a PBS beg-a-thon that used the new documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Above Us Only Sky," as bait.

I watched a bit about Yoko's first poetry collection, "Grapefruit," which famously includes an instruction to "burn this book after you've read it."

Then I watched a few Bugs Bunny cartoons. They were wonderfully creative (as, of course, were John and Yoko). I laughed and thought about how random and beautiful life can be.

I am sure AI would never, if left to its own devices, be able to create something that would equate the same two things in context. That thought comforts me.

So I asked Microsoft to auto-generate an image of Yoko Ono eating a grapefruit while watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. It's the monstrosity at the top of this post.

Then I wrote this poem:

If AI Wrote This Poem

If AI wrote this poem,

Would it randomly quote Yoko Ono?

Would it use cartoonish pentameter,

and dare ask me in rhyme to burn this poem

before hiding its intent in hexameter?

Would it do this?

Would it take the inner sanctum

of everything I’ve written,

lock it in a box with me in a fetal position,

and drive a sword though it, nearly severing my head?

Would it also have the temerity to do this?

Call me its bosom chum

as it drives another sword to ensure I was dead?

This second try narrowly misses my heart as I clutch all my words,

then tumble head over heels, cast recklessly down the stairs.

Repeat in Edward G. Robinson’s voice:

What a pal

What a pal

What a pal

AI will never take me alive. I dare it a third try.

I’ll give it one word; take two for me.

Then laugh as I squirt a random grapefruit

into its smug, pansophical eye. 

Yeah, some poets can take it, see.

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Now that I've written this and published it here, my words are fair game for versions of even more pervasive and powerful versions of AI.

After all, if nothing else, AI's existence is a reminder that we are all part of something bigger than ourselves. Whether we like it or not.

So, in closing, let me warn the future robots of this:

“Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this poem, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited.”