(“Futility” by Robbie Kerr) 

Said poor Mrs. Owen
To her son Wilfred
Why must you always
Write of the trenches?
Why can’t you write
Like that nice Mr. Wordsworth
Of flowers?

Said Mrs. Picasso
To her son Pablo
Why must you always
Paint so distortedly?
Why can’t you paint
Like that nice Mr. Monet
Some flowers?

Because we don’t always
Create what we celebrate,
Sometimes we model the
Things that we’d like to change,
Things we don’t like, or just
Things that we think about –
Thoughts of ours.

This poem was published in The Road Not Taken – a journal of formal poetry that is edited by Kathryn Jacobs in connection with Texas A&M University at Commerce, TX.

Technically the poem lacks some aspects of what we tend to assume is “form”, notably extensive rhyme, alliteration or assonance. But each of the stanzas has the same seven-line form, with two stressed syllables in each of the first six lines and a shorter seventh line. The first two stanzas have virtually identical structure, though one deals with poetry and the other with painting, and the third stanza answers them. The last lines repeat and rhyme.

It is really the natural rhythm of the poem that allows it to be included in a journal of formal poetry. In the sense that “form” is any trick of verse that allows it to be remembered word for word, form can be a lot broader than some of the narrow definitions of formal verse.