Abstract

ONE of the more dislturbing habits of contemporary practitioners of poetry is that of casting their non-stanzaic works in stanzaic shapes. For reasons that are either unclear or suspect, a phenomenon which may be called the sight-stanza has developed: on the printed page, the poem looks stanzaic, but no clear principle of stanzaic composition justifies this appearance. I suspect that a good deal of this practice stems from misapplications of some of William Carlos Williams' pronouncements-the three-line groupings that he helped to popularize are the most common form of contemporary stanzaic-looking poems. Let me clarify my position. I am not interested in arguing that true stanzaic poetry should be salvaged from its near-oblivion. I make no case for the necessity of end-rhyme as the defining principle of the stanza (though it can be a defining principle). I do not even maintain that the units of a stanzaic poem need always be end-stopped: enjambed stanzas can create exciting effects. I simply insist that apparent units should be real units of some kind. Artifice is one thing; deceit is another. To borrow the prestige of stanzaic form without paying the price of stanzaic control is a deceit. Stanzas are more than typography. What are the principles of a satisfying, legitimate stanzaic poem? Perhaps the best way to proceed is by example. We could begin almost anywhere in literary history, but let's begin with a short, well-known stanzaic effort by Wordsworth: