Lindsay Oliver
100 DAYS OF FORMAL POETRY
I love formal verse. I love the challenge of writing a poem that adheres to the form of a sonnet or a villanelle without the rhymes or rhythms sounding forced. Despite my enthusiasm, I had very little experience writing formal verse. So, for this year I wrote a stanza of formal verse each day. I didn’t write a completed poem each day, instead I wrote a single stanza each day. Some days I wrote more than one. Over the course of the project, I used 53 forms to complete 53 poems.
Prior to starting this project, many of my poems focused on issues of disability and social justice. I am angry that so many poetry venues are inaccessible and this is reflected in my poetry. When I started writing formal verse, my focus shifted. Many of the poems I wrote concerned nature and the longing I feel to run across the sand to the sea or reach the summit of Schiehallion one last time. I’m still angry, but when writing formal verse, another response to the loss of my old life, my previous self, came to the fore.
Not all the poems I wrote concerned nature. The political situation was too full not to respond, and I had great fun writing about some villains of 2021.
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