Red Tree Review

1. Getting Started

Let’s explore the use of stanzas in contemporary poetry.

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• write a poem using either stichic or stanzaic structure
• differentiate between stichic, stanzaic, and free verse structures

2. Video: Approaching the Stanza

Access a transcript of this video.

3. Stanzaic Choice

Almost all poetry today is shaped by the free verse movement. End-rhymes and strict adherence to traditional forms are largely considered archaic approaches. But the poetic choices inherent in free verse are still informed by the echoes of the past.

In every poem, the writer makes a decision in terms of whether to use stanzas, and if so, which type. This choice, informed by literary history, means different things and affects the way the poem feels to the reader.

Click through the image reel below to learn about some different types of stanzas and their associations.

Access a transcript of this image reel.

4. Knowledge Check

5. Ghosts and Echoes

Contemporary poetry doesn’t make a big deal about literary history. The ghosts of old literary forms aren’t announcing themselves on the poem’s stage; they stand quietly behind the curtain, and we feel them in subtle ways as we read the poem itself.

Click on the image on the left to read “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand. Use the following questions to guide your reading:

• How does the uneven, off-kilter feeling of the tercet contribute to the way this poem feels?
• The tercet was famously used in Dante’s Divine Comedy, a poem about a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. How does this history influence the way this poem feels?
• How might this poem feel different if it were written in couplets or quatrains?
• How does this poem balance stanzaic formal choices with the freedom of contemporary free verse?

9. Prompt: Stanzaic Structure

Choose one of the following:

• Option 1: Write a poem with no stanzaic breaks (stichic). Let the lines be as long or as short as feels appropriate, with no alternating pattern.
• Option 2: Write a poem with no stanzaic breaks (stichic), then decide on either couplets or tercets based on what feels most appropriate to the poem.

Share the resulting poem with some fellow writers whose opinions you trust, either informally or in a workshop setting. Ask them (and yourself) the following:

• Does the stanzaic structure of the poem fit the poem’s language and content?
• How does the white space between stanzas feel?
• Does this stanzaic choice feel connected to the form’s history in an interesting way?
• Do the units of language created by the stanzas here feel meaningful or useful?
• How does the use of stanzaic structure here affect the poem’s cadence, its rhythm?

10. Quiz: The Stanza

Want to test your knowledge? Try the following quiz. For each question below, identify the correct answer.

Before You Go

Check out the following resources on stanzaic form:

• “Couplet.” (n.d.). Glossary of Poetic Terms. The Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/couplet 
• Hirsch, Edward. (2014). “Stanza.” A Poet’s Glossary. Houghton Mifflin.
• “Quatrain.” (n.d.). Glossary of Poetic Terms. The Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/quatrain 
• “Terza Rima.” (n.d.). “Glossary of Poetic Terms.” The Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/terza-rima
• Turco, Lewis Putnam. (2012). The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms. Dartmouth.