poetic forms

sestina

strict repetition, long, recursive, do it right once and then do it wrong in interesting ways until you can do it right better. cf. The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People by David Ferry.

villanelle

repetitive and brief, limits your vocabulary, like worrying at the same problem again and again. best when each stanza recontextualizes the repeated lines. cf. One Art by Elizabeth Bishop.

sonnet

look, you can try to make the sonnet cool. idk. i revisit the sonnet every few months like my opinion will have changed. cf. shakespeare, you know him.

ghazal

typically love poems, collections of couplets with each second line ending in the same word. what is love if not obsession, etc. cf. the work of Agha Shahid Ali, all of which you should read.