Experimental
Verse
Introduction
to Flexible Forms: "Cherita"
Flexible
Forms: "a personal speculation"
Form, whether it
is a set form or an organic form, is one of the fundamentals
that every poet must come to terms with. What I’d like to
discuss here, is something between the set forms, such as
ballad stanzas, sonnets, or the sestina, and the organic
forms, which act as the armatures of effective free verse. For
the purpose of this essay, I will call that something a
‘flexible form.’
As a young poet, I yearned for a form that would be a
handmaiden to all my needs as a poet. Fortunately, I didn’t
find it, and eventually grew away from the urge to have the
form, or perhaps I should say, the format, of my next poem
handed to me. I wrote mostly in free verse, that is to say
organic forms. But once I discovered haiku, and, a short while
later, tanka, I had discovered something that somewhat met
this old desire for a handmaiden for all occasions, though at
first I did not realized this.
Let me explain.
Syllabic forms in English have little meaning, of course,
except as a way of creating a resistance, which I believe can
be of great value in the creating of a poem. Sometimes
resistance happens in the search for an organic solution to
the poem in question, or because the poet is having, for one
reason or another, difficulty in realizing his or her poem.
But the poet can, also, create resistance by imposing, or
inventing, a form.
What I like about an imposed form is that it makes me work
harder, and when I work harder, I very often write a better
poem. Part of the pleasure of writing poetry, I think, is this
particular challenge of playing content against form. But what
of the times when the form damages the final product, by a
need for padding it or cramping it to accommodate the syllable
count? This is where the flexible form comes in.
English-language haiku and tanka can work in this manner. Or
one can invent such forms. But first, let’s consider the
nature of English-language haiku and tanka, as a flexible
form.
I believe it is generally conceded that in English poetry,
syllabic forms are of little value, except as they may serve
any particular poet, as a format to work within. And though in
English-language haiku and tanka we are concerned with
syllabic counts, they are not precise. There has been, of
course, the English tradition of the 5-7-5 syllable haiku, but
we are long past the point where we feel compelled to stick
with this first English-language concept of haiku. An
important factor—not the only, but an important one, to my
thinking—is that once we begin to deal with a 17 or fewer
syllable haiku, we leave behind that danger of damaging our
haiku or tanka by padding or cramping it to accommodate the
syllable count. And here, I suggest, we have entered into the
realm of the flexible form.
The haiku remains a haiku, with its two-element (fragment and
phrase) form, but there is a flexibility as to the number of
syllables used. Up to a point, that is. The size, or the
syllabic length, of the haiku is still an important factor in
determining its form. One can, of course, go beyond the
seventeen syllable limit, but if it is taken too far, it is
not likely that the resulting poem will be accepted as a
haiku. The same for the tanka, with its underlying five line,
short-long-short-long-long, structure, originally imported
into English as a 31 syllable form. Also, the tanka, like the
haiku, ideally has a two part structure, a turn between the
first three lines and the last two, although where the turn
comes in English tanka is variable. Still, we have here a
form, but not a form that is fixed at a certain number of
syllables. The sonnet, for example, is a fixed, or set, form,
in that it is fourteen iambic pentameter lines, usually
rhymed. To change that, is to play with the form, and in the
strictest sense, whatever results would no longer be a sonnet.
So, it was that I, at last, found something that satisfied my
one time desire for a handmaiden for all occasions, the
flexible form, providing, or course, that I was dealing in the
very short forms of haiku and tanka. But there are other
flexible forms available. I’d liked to discuss one such form -
the cherita.
Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale and was created by
ai li, the founding editor of still, a journal of short
verse, with its now independent e-zine offshoot
dew-on-line. A cherita consists, according to its
creator, of “a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by
a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse.”
The cherita tells a story.
More can be found about the cherita’s origin, on the still
website at: http://www.aili.co.uk/home.htm Here you will find
examples of ai li’s cherita, and others, by looking under the
section "linked forms" and under that for "Cherita."
. . .
In December 2004 and January of 2005 there were postings of
cherita and about cherita on the WHCpoetrybridge website. At
one point, I posted the following thoughts on the cherita.
“in thinking about what a cherita has been to me, one thing
I’ve noticed in writing them is that they have a 'beginning' a
'middle' and an 'end.' and one way [in which] they work well,
is to have that [first] line be brief and [used to] set the
scene, [give] the tone, etc. the next two lines are the body
of the poem, and then (and I think this is important) the last
3 lines, obviously the end, should be fairly short, the climax
and denouement in one. this gives it impact. even if the
ending is one phrase, it can be broken to fit the form. i
think that when the end spreads too much, say, into
Whitmanesque lines, what one has is a free form poem put into
1/2/3/ line verses. the essence of the cherita is brevity. it
grew out of the haiku [and renku] experience, and I feel it
should retain something of that brevity and elliptical phrase
and fragment quality. to me that is the essence of cherita. it
often has a story, or anecdotal, quality, though I believe it
can be used as a lyrical form, as well. but I stress it needs
the same care as in writing a haiku. though no exact syllable
count has been imposed, it is about haiku length or less in
each of its verses. the first line, perhaps, being the
exception. it is as short as a single line of a haiku. of
course, this is my own opinion, and as it is a new form there
is a lot of room for experimentation. to me the beauty of the
form, and the game, if you like, of the form, is to see how
concise i can be. there is power in conciseness.
in a recent e-mail chat with Sheila Windsor about cherita, she
had a somewhat different idea of the length of the different
verses, than I have, but I think she has a valid point, which
should be considered carefully. i believe when she says,
below, that a three line verse should be longer than a two
line verse, she means that the syllable count is longer over
the total [of a] three line [verse], than it is over the total
[of a] two line verse. that is to say, that her cherita do not
become longer and longer [in line length, as the poem
progresses], but that the [three line] verse contains more
syllables [than the two line verse]. her cherita look very
similar to mine and to ai li’s, who first devised the 1/2/3/
line unit as part of a linked form, called the Lunenga. here
are sheila windsor’s comments, for which I have asked
permission to post.
the post:
i'm not by nature a 'rule' person but one thing i try to
observe with my own cheritas is that each verse be longer than
the one before (taking syllable count as the measure). so that
the two line verse is longer than the one line verse and the
three longer than the two. it's something i aim for in renku
and rengay too. my attention was first drawn to this by john
carley (in relation to rengay) posing the question: if the two
line verse is to be 'longer' than the three, what meaning does
the distinction have? i saw his point immediately and ever
since have found myself needing to have a more meaningful
distinction between, say, a two and a three line verse, than
mere formatting. arguably there should be other differences
too, though less easily definable, differences of tone and
sensibility for example . . . reasons why a one line verse is
a one line verse, rather than a two or a three . . . reasons
other than merely: "the form calls for one line at that
position"
sheila
[a point well taken by this author]
Incidentally, I think cherita is, like haiku and tanka, used
for both one or several poems, that is, I don’t think it uses
an ‘s’ for its plural.
Here are two examples of cherita, to illustrate my point about
conciseness. You will notice that one tells a story, while the
other, though suggesting a story, is more lyrical.
his clothes to
charity
unpacking the suitcases
of the vacation no longer awaited
finding
the Valentine meant
for today
© 2005 by Larry Kimmel
still, a journal of short verse: Issue Two
2000 Spring
_________________________
after seeing you
off
taking the path along
the canal
a rustle of
leaves
underfoot
