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A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into the Formal Imagination of Poetry

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An acute and deeply insightful book of essays exploring poetic form and the role of instinct and imagination within form—from former poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author Robert Hass.

Robert Hass—former poet laureate, winner of the National Book Award, and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize—illuminates the formal impulses that underlie great poetry in this sophisticated, graceful, and accessible volume of essays drawn from a series of lectures he delivered at the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

A Little Book on Form brilliantly synthesizes Hass’s formidable gifts as both a poet and a critic and reflects his profound education in the art of poetry. Starting with the exploration of a single line as the basic gesture of a poem, and moving into an examination of the essential expressive gestures that exist inside forms, Hass goes beyond approaching form as a set of traditional rules that precede composition, and instead offers penetrating insight into the true openness and instinctiveness of formal creation.

A Little Book on Form is a rousing reexamination of our longest lasting mode of literature from one of our greatest living poets.

452 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2014

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About the author

Robert Hass

100 books206 followers
Robert Hass was born in San Francisco and lives in Berkeley, California, where he teaches at the University of California. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. A MacArthur Fellow and a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he has published poems, literary essays, and translations. He is married to the poet Brenda Hillman.

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5 stars
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46 (16%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
Profile Image for Spencer Orey.
583 reviews173 followers
March 13, 2021
I've been trying to get better at reading and writing poetry.

This is a nicely direct book. It doesn't make many big arguments but it lays out some general boundaries and possibilities around poetry forms:

Here are some definitions of what a sonnet is. Here's some history of the sonnet in English. Here are some notable sonnets from the past 400 years with attention to how the form has changed and what the form has been able to do.

Anyway I got a lot out of it. I can see keeping this around as a solid reference book.
Profile Image for Ken.
Author 3 books1,044 followers
December 31, 2017
Do I put this in essays? Do I put this in poetry? Both. And certainly in "Finished-in-2017," as it will be the last.

This book was a bit of a struggle. It's big, for one thing. Damn near 500 pages. And it's not the same as essays on poetry I've read by, say, Tony Hoagland or Jane Hirshfield, both accomplished in the field.

No, as the introduction warns us, this book is based on Robert Hass's lecture notes from teaching at university. It reads it, too. You get definition of terms. You get a little historical background. You get snippets of poems and occasionally a full poem as examples. And you get Hass's opinions of same.

The first five chapters are on stanzas: "One," "Two," "Three," "Four," and "A Note on Numbers." After that, the chapters treat on subjects such as Blank Verse, Sonnets, Sestinas, Villanelles, Odes, Elegies, Satires, Georgics, Difficult Forms, Collages and Abstractions and Oulipos and Procedural Poetics (Oh, My!), Prose Poems, and Free Verse.

Meaning, it's more a reference book hybrid essay book than the type thing Hoagland and Hirshfield, Inc., excel at. Hass is a learned man and all, a guy who might teach you how to scan poetry properly, if that's your thing, but it was all a bit too academic for my tastes. 2.5 stars, rounded up for kindness.
Profile Image for Robert Wechsler.
Author 12 books130 followers
May 4, 2020
A good rehash for me of a college course, Versification, that I took with Robert Fitzgerald many years ago in college. It contains a lot of examples, goes beyond the set forms and meters, and provides an excellent history of each.
Profile Image for Keith Taylor.
Author 19 books73 followers
September 22, 2021
Yes, this is a big book, particularly if you stop to think about some of the poems Hass recommends -- some of them old and long and wonderful. But the journey is worth it! The reading list is marvelous. Took me back to things I haven't read in 40 or 50 years (Dryden for instance), but also introduced me to things I should have known, but didn't (Gertrude Stein's "Lifting Belly" for instance)

What is best and different about Hass's approach is that he is descriptive rather than prescriptive. He hears stress and foregrounds that. Yes, he will move stress to fit a meter if it helps the poem, but that is less important. He knows and values received form, but that is less important than developing/recognizing the form that the language is presenting.

He says he's not particularly interested in interpretation in this book, mostly in formal analysis. And that is true. But as Hass realizes, formal thinking takes us deep into understanding a poem. Steven's "Of Mere Being," which I have known for decades, opened up for me for the first time ever and became very trippy and wonderful.

Hass is not only widely read, but he reads generously. That generosity gives this book life.
Profile Image for Anisha Inkspill.
443 reviews46 followers
April 14, 2019
Having read Schmidt’s book that covers the work of 50 modern poets my thoughts posted here , I now wanted to read a book to help me understand the art of poetry, so I chose this.

This book is divided into two parts, the first is like an intro of the mechanics of poetry. Hass, in using examples of poetry and extracts of one to four lines, gets you comfortable about thinking about rhymes and sequences before he launches into the second part - the form. As I kept reading, I understood this to mean a template, where there are different kinds and have names like: Blank Verse, Sonnet and Ode, I give the complete list below.

Some parts were harder to grasp than others but I realised how big this subject is and liked how Hass not just tried to explain each form with examples but for some he showed how it developed through the ages to modern times. I also found it helpful how through the book he listed further reading sections to help me continue my journey and further my understanding of this art. It’s the kind of book that invites you to re-read parts of it again and again, which I would not hesitate to do as it had a vast example of poets and poetry, some from the East.

I also found the end chapters helpful; detailed examples of prosody, demonstrating how stresses and metering work with a quick run-down of some poetry tech-terms. Overall, I thought it was a good book to start with as a beginner who is interested in this subject.

Forms included:
Blank Verse
Sonnet
Sestina
Villanelle
Ode
Elegy
Satire
Georgic
Prose forms
Also, variable stanzas, difficult forms and mixed forms have a chapter each and discussed in depth.
Read
January 12, 2024
a neat primer, to my little ears it's very certainly American but that's no crime. hass is here to moreorless run thru everything you approximately may find helpful with canonical examples. & he does. definitely some areas there's less confidence & expertise,,,, but it still feels like yaeah This is The Go To for now.
Profile Image for Don Hackett.
160 reviews7 followers
May 13, 2017
I liked this book, especially the concept that form in poetry is about time, not space. A four-line stanza with breaks makes an interesting pattern on a page but the form is in the short pause after each line, and the longer pauses between stanzas. It reads easily, if you like poetry; if you don't you probably won't read it unless someone makes you.

The book is based on notes for a class he taught for people who want to write poetry but don't expect too esoteric an approach. He starts with the basics of form, 1, 2, 3, and 4-line poetry, or stanzas. One line? He thinks haiku could be a one-line form that is conventionally presented as three lines in English translation.

He devotes long chapters to popular forms in English poetry, sonnet, ode, and elegy. I don't much like sonnets, so this chapter dragged a little for me. The chapter on odes is beautiful, with the high point being a care full reading of an ode by Keats ("Already with you tender is the night.") He makes a case that the Four Quartets by Eliot is a series of odes, in part, and that The Wasteland is an elegy without a body.

In summary, the book presents a lot of information and some wisdom, gracefully and vividly. It may be that he does not get too far from the hands-on craft that he is a master of.
Author 4 books1 follower
August 3, 2018
Not quite a little book, and not quite the font of revelation I'd hoped it would be, either. Hass is always interesting, readable and entertaining, and his knowledge of poetry is encyclopedic. However, if you're looking for a book that will give you insight into why certain poets break their lines or stanzas the way they do, you're not really going to find that here, because each poem is kind of an ideogram of itself. If you're strictly looking for examples of forms, this is a useful handbook. But if you're looking for greater insight into lineation and form itself, and what makes a poet decide to move his or her poem a certain way, I didn't find much help here. In Hass' defense, perhaps that can ONLY be discovered in each particular poet.
Profile Image for Tucker.
Author 28 books204 followers
November 1, 2019
A mix of poetry quotations from a particular (white, male) canon and dense, academic analyses of their style. If that's your jam, this is your book. I got a couple knowledge-items out of it but, after struggling for months to finish it, I quit halfway through.

The Kindle Unlimited page count is misnumbered; it counts to nearly 500 pages at the halfway point (where I stopped) and the second half is unnumbered. A minor formatting error, I suppose, since eBooks don't really have "pages" anyway, but it affected my reading experience especially given that the book is not a "page-turner." Being told that I am reading 500+infinity pages deeply undermines the title of "little book."
138 reviews31 followers
August 23, 2018
I need a physical version of this, so I can just page through. It's a good book. It does a great job of taking you through examples of the form, tracing lineage, and showing the vastly different things poets can do. Admittedly I skipped over a lot of the "further reading" material, but I would like to go back to it some afternoon. This is the book that helped get me into haiku, and finally make me like Keats.

Profile Image for Lucas Bishop.
23 reviews1 follower
June 30, 2019
This book was adapted from a class that Hass taught. As such, it felt like a bit of a slog at times. Even so, I was able to read a lot of poetry (which was incredible) through this large and sometimes boring book.
Profile Image for Sher.
539 reviews3 followers
August 9, 2021
I seldom give a book a 5 star plus rating, but if you are interested in poetic forms (sonnets, elegy, meditative, ode, free verse, cultural epic, lyric, contemporary, haiku...) this book deserves a super plus rating. Many poetic examples are provided and all the major and the less known quirky forms are covered. Terrific bibliography for further study in forms that interest you. The comprehensive nature of this book and the clarity of the writing is well received. I think this book is valuable for a poet to better understand style, rhythm, meter, lines... and also a serious reader of poetry. I read it cover to cover, and I expect I'll return to this book over the years.

5 Star plus
Profile Image for John.
219 reviews9 followers
February 9, 2019
I only skimmed the book over the course a few hours, so this is less a review than notes to myself for when I read it again. But read again I most certainly shall, because there is a lot to learn here. I originally saw it on a bookstore shelf and picked it up because, while I read and enjoy poetry, I've never actually studied it, so I thought this might help make up for my lack of college lit classes; I was not wrong.

The book sprang from the author's notes for a seminar for aspiring poets, and parts retain the feeling of notes, while other sections are fully written out. It covers the entire breadth of poetry in the English language, from medieval song through the 21st century. It brings in poetry of other languages where it has influenced or inspired poetry in English (the odes of Horace, Persian ghazals, Petrarchan sonnets and more), but it's definitely not about the poetry of the world. It includes poems and fragments from nearly 70 different poets, and suggests reading of many, many more.

I'd break the book down into four parts, each of which is several chapters, not always adjacent. One part considers lines of poetry, either alone or in groups of two to four, with observations about the relationships between grammatical structures and poetic ones, how stanzas of varying sizes have different effects, and some related forms, including haiku, couplets, blues, terza rima, and the ballad. A second part discusses structures such as the sonnet, ghazal, villanelle, as well as blank verse, what the author calls "difficult" forms, constructed or generated poetry, and that apparent contradiction, prose poetry. Another part explores poetic "genres", including odes, elegies, satires, etc., none of which are constrained either by meter of stanza structure. The final part comprises a few chapters about rhythm, stress, and scanning a poem, and "how free verse works".

I think when I come back to this I'll plan to spend a leisurely year with it, reading a chapter with pencil in hand, then going off to spend time with the suggested readings (or at least some of them). I know there are other books on poetic form out there (the author recommends a couple in his introduction), and I'll probably look them up too. What I got out of this first pass tells me that there's a lot more to get, and that it will give me the tools to deepen my understanding of, and appreciation for, both the poetry I've already read, and the poems I've yet to discover.
Profile Image for Kenton Yee.
97 reviews6 followers
June 1, 2018
Consider the opening quatrain of Emily Dickinson’s I cannot live with You:

I cannot live with You –
It would be Life –
And Life is over there –
Behind the Shelf

Its lines alternate between iambic trimeter and iambic bimeter, a shortening of Dickinson's usual alternating iambic tetra- and trimeters hymn form. There are no end rhymes (unless you consider Life and Shelf to be off rhymes). Its subject (Life) is abstract, and there is no imagery or movement until "over there / Behind the shelf.” Each of the four lines contains a reference to Life: live, Life, Life, and Shelf. And its ending couplet lends itself to two diametric interpretations: 1) Life there behind the Shelf is over; or 2) Life is over there, there behind the Shelf. Formally, this quatrain resembles the opening of a poetic argument of a Shakespearean sonnet, but with its lines containing fewer feet, plainer vocabulary, and a destitution of romantic decor, metaphor, and end rhymes. (End rhymes would evoke unity or synchronicity whereas the subject here is conflict and separation.) In this way, Dickinson’s poetic form performs restraint for us, and it launches into an argument for restraint and separation.

Using dozens of examples like the one just described, Robert Hass' A Little Book on Form sheds light on how poetic form combines with syntax, prosody, vocabulary, juxtaposition, imagery, rhetoric, metaphors, paradox etc etc to make (or break) a poem.

When I first ordered A Little Book on Form, I expected to receive a “little” book. However, at 447 pages, the book is big, not little. It takes the reader on a journey of forms, from one- and two-line poems to haikus, Victorian medievalism, modernism, blank and free verse, collage, prose poetry and procedural poetics, among others. The book is “little” only in relation to the vast expanse of its subject matter. The volume succeeds by being high level and methodical without skimping on specificity and plenty of interesting examples. Besides being a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Hass is a scholar and this book brings you into his master classroom. I felt like I was attending his Iowa workshop (where I understand Hass once taught this material). It seems to be the real deal, and I expect that I will be coming back to this little book again and again. 📓
Profile Image for Therese Broderick.
140 reviews8 followers
December 15, 2017
I agree wholeheartedly with those reviewers, critics, and Goodreads subscribers who have lavished their praise upon this thrilling book. Perhaps every compliment within possibility has already been bestowed. I will offer only this idiosyncratic observation: the book's subtitle irks me. I want to substitute the phrase "imagining of" for "imagination of," because it is we writers, we poets, we human beings who activate the mental imagining of poetry and its vivifying forms.

From the perspective of Mr. Hass, "form" is an expressive and dynamic force,"The way the poem embodies the energy of the gesture of its making." (page 3, hardcover edition). A poet must nourish his/her formal imagination, "the intuitions that shape a work of art" (ibid), by listening attentively to the complex rhythms and pulses of language. "Mostly they [poets] listen and record what they are just hearing or have just heard" (page 113, hardcover edition).

Accordingly, I will task myself with listening--with listening reverently to the many exemplary poems chosen by Mr. Hass for publication within these pages. I will read these poems aloud, record my voice, then listen to the recordings. In this way, I can transform the immensely significant notes of Mr. Hass into my own personal how-to-write-poetry guide, an essential handbook for training my own intuitive imaginings.
Profile Image for Ray Zimmerman.
Author 7 books7 followers
May 6, 2020
The chapter on satire taught me that some of my poems are satires, particularly those written in heroic couplets. Apparently, the use of forms is common in satire. This was only one of many revelations found within A Little Book on Form, which is not so little at over 400 pages, yet still not exhaustive on the subject. The chapter on "Reading the Sonnet" goes on for 50 pages, packed with examples.

The author begins with one line in his first chapter, appropriately titled "One," stating that it is more difficult to write a good line than a good poem. He moves on to couplets and the Ghazal with their two-line stanzas. He then explores terza rima, tercet, triplet and haiku, followed by the quatrain. Chapters are devoted given to blank verse, free verse, elegy, and ode.

The pantoum is not neglected, nor is the villanelle. These words may be unfamiliar in our contemporary world where much of the published poetry is unrhymed free verse and form seems to be forgotten, but familiarity with them will greatly add to the enjoyment of poetry, and even to that of free verse.

The author has much to say about how form: rhyme, rhythm, stanza patterns and unrhymed lines complement and enhance the content of a poem. This is not a book to be read in one stretch, but readers will find that it adds to their reading, writing and enjoyment of poetry.
244 reviews7 followers
June 13, 2022
Consisting of twenty-four chapters stretching over some four hundred plus pages, famed poet and essayist Robert Hass's "A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into the Formal Imagination of Poetry" stretches powerfully the interested reader's views concerning all things relating to poetry and form, from the sestina, to the villanelle, to that old standby, the Sonnet, to newer experimentations in prose poetry and free verse (vers libre). Along the way, as one is instructed (so gently, so clearly) in the vicissitudes of poetic form, one also encounters a wealth of examples, which illustrate the forms being discussed as well as providing insight into the almost encyclopedic knowledge of the subject by Mr. Hass. In the mind of this reader, the discussion/explication of the Elegy, with reference to the book by Peter Sacks entitled "The English Elegy," is particularly outstanding, with clear examples stretching over the history of the Western tradition of this form (which stretches back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Pindar and Horace)). Though, one must state that, at times, the prose descends into the state of lecture notes without a clear narrative 'voice' bringing the reader through some of the more opaque content of the book, this is mostly to b e forgiven for the readers's experience and education received is so profound and deep that a slight level of tediousness is a small price for the admission into the erudite poetic world of Mr. Hass. For the world of Mr. Hass is one where poetry is revealed in all its complexity and beauty as an art form, though in eclipse lately, still possesses a legacy that serves to pronounce it as the premier art form of mankind. This books serves to elucidate and make clear this fact to all readers.
Profile Image for Luis Borjas.
38 reviews
June 23, 2018
Probably the best, and most thorough, exploration of the formal mindset in poetry: its motivations, its expressions throughout history, its evolution, its nigh-equivalence to the poetic impulse and the creative endeavor. Hass presents a cogent, well researched and supplemented approach to understanding the many forms that English poetry has taken, presenting compelling arguments to explore and converse with them. This well-reasoned tome is the first time I've managed to grok the elusive characteristic of less constrained forms like the ode and elegy, and have appreciated the impetus behind meter and rhyme. Highly recommended for readers and writers of poetry who'd like to survey its meanderings through anglophone history.
Profile Image for Lisa.
420 reviews20 followers
October 11, 2018
As someone with scant formal training in the structural and technical aspects of poetry, I found this book both fascinating and frustrating. It wasn't until the very end that I finally accepted that Hass was offering a richly annotated reference work and not a true introductory guide to the subject of poetic form. Now that I'm over my disappointment, I'm.excited to go back and dip into those sections that intrigued me most, mining Hass' lists of exemplars and perhaps even taking up his challenge to diagram some poems. All of that newfound enthusiasm aside, as a reference work his book is missing some important components, namely an index (!) and a good glossary. The presence of those two items would have bumped my review up one star.
Profile Image for David C Ward.
1,613 reviews35 followers
October 2, 2017
An interesting book that does make you wonder what publishers have in mind - is there a market for essentially the very detailed lecture/class notes of a fine poet who also teaches? Interesting and instructive in parts, especially in the beginnings when Hass riffs on numbers, it also gets bogged down in lists, extensive quotations, assignments etc that keep this from being something less than a handbook or instruction manual let alone an argument about form. Lots of interesting bits though. Now if I could just remember what a spondee is.
Profile Image for Gerry LaFemina.
Author 40 books62 followers
December 29, 2017
Hass's ironically titled (It is a BIG book--in both its length and breadth) A Little Book on Form, is smart and insightful. I sometimes want to argue with him (which is, aas, impossible), and sometimes feel the push toward a belief that the fractal/LANGUAGE poetics is the most relevent school of poetry today overwhelms the arguments, but there's no doubt that Hass is well read, erudite, and cares, deeply, about poetry and the history of prosody.
Profile Image for Vincent.
Author 4 books23 followers
December 15, 2017
Little? Actually, quite lengthy and informed. Hass has penned a solid look at the ways forms work, even so-called free verse. The examples within range from classics by Frost to lesser known (to this reader) ghazals (and what is easily my favorite poetry from C. D. Wright), all discussed with clarity and focus. Great stuff.
Profile Image for Scott Wiggerman.
Author 43 books21 followers
December 19, 2017
A challenging book at times, but also insightful. It's not quite what I expected, and a good portion of the book focuses on three forms: sonnets, odes, and elegies. There are much shorter chapters on other forms, like sestinas, prose poems, etc., and Hass presents a brief history of each of the forms complete with examples. I will add this his final chapters on scansion and meter are excellent.
Profile Image for Caroline Meek.
Author 5 books34 followers
June 29, 2020
This book gave me language with which to talk about formal aspects of poetry. Written in short, easily-digestible yet rich sections, Hass packs so much good information into this volume! I read this book for an advanced poetry seminar with Andrew King (University of Iowa), and I feel more confident as both a writer and reader as a result.
Profile Image for Aisha.
783 reviews2 followers
September 24, 2020
5 stars for a great reference and jumping off point for learning and studying poetic forms. Reads like lecture notes from the many workshops the author has conducted. Lots of opportunities to read further (suggested readings in each section).

This work fulfills Popsugar’s 2020 Reading Challenge Prompt - “A book you meant to read in 2019”.
Profile Image for Kate.
510 reviews9 followers
February 27, 2021
At times it went more in-depth than I understood, but overall this was very readable and interesting. Most chapters sent me off looking more more information about something, which is awesome. I'd say this book is well matched to my intermediate knowledge of poetry, though I'd guess beginners and experts would also find something to please.
Profile Image for worm.
20 reviews
November 10, 2022
I had to read this book for Poetry class. First things first, this book on form is definitely not LITTLE. If you are interested on a very detailed breakdown of poetry and form through the centuries this book is for you. If you are a person who simply enjoys reading poetry then stir clear! Good and very informative book. Not for everyone.
January 4, 2018
This is a smart overview of how poetic form work in English, with Hass's trademark breeziness. I could have done without pages and pages of lists of poems in the main text, though: there should have been an index.
Profile Image for Meg E..
Author 3 books8 followers
January 18, 2018
A great book for reimagining form that is accessible for the academic and layman alike. Wish there were more ways in which the poetry was used, such as prompts at the end of each chapter that utilized the examples thoroughly. Overall, lovely. I will be purchasing my own copy.
Profile Image for Rod.
134 reviews3 followers
July 22, 2018
This book feels essential somehow. A deeply enjoyable dive into many and various poetic forms, with copious and apposite examples, that will also serve as an invaluable reference in years to come. Hass also uses a light hand to suggest further reading so that you don't feel browbeaten or exhausted.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews

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