Paradoxically, constraints are liberating. I am terrified by the freedoms of choice -- for example the menus of an Indian or Chinese restaurant. Give me a set menu any day. I can write unfashionable formal verse limericks, sonnets, etc - but not the kind of free poetry more accepted today. The last stanza of a published poem ("Freedom in Captivity) by the little-known writer David Lewis puts it thus: "In writing poems, sonnet forms / Like all prosodic rules and norms /
Do never tie: they liberate / Allow us, bounded, to create."
The challenge of meeting constraints (finding a rhyme, a rhythm, a line with a specific number of syllables or beats ...) pushes writers into pursuing ideas and avenues they would otherwise have ignored. What is true for formal poetry is just as true for flash and micro fiction.
Yes - absolute freedom is terrifying, isn't it? I love your poem, and I agree about those parallels between poetry and flash / micros when it comes to restrictions. And even a novelist needs to hem themselves in to some extent.
Paradoxically, constraints are liberating. I am terrified by the freedoms of choice -- for example the menus of an Indian or Chinese restaurant. Give me a set menu any day. I can write unfashionable formal verse limericks, sonnets, etc - but not the kind of free poetry more accepted today. The last stanza of a published poem ("Freedom in Captivity) by the little-known writer David Lewis puts it thus: "In writing poems, sonnet forms / Like all prosodic rules and norms /
Do never tie: they liberate / Allow us, bounded, to create."
The challenge of meeting constraints (finding a rhyme, a rhythm, a line with a specific number of syllables or beats ...) pushes writers into pursuing ideas and avenues they would otherwise have ignored. What is true for formal poetry is just as true for flash and micro fiction.
Yes - absolute freedom is terrifying, isn't it? I love your poem, and I agree about those parallels between poetry and flash / micros when it comes to restrictions. And even a novelist needs to hem themselves in to some extent.
Great post, Matt! And time-travelling squirrels? Love the idea! :))