Literary Forms with Poetic Implications: (3) Mesostic poetry

'Mesostic' was a new word for me. I encountered it on Alec Finlay's page, where it appears several times in relation to his poetry collections.

For a definition of Mesostic, I turn to Wikipedia ...

• Alec Finlay, Scottish Poetry Library
• Alec Finlay, artist, poet and publisher

Resources (1): Useful Books (currently a list 'in progress'...)

The Book of Forms: a Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms by Lewis Putnam Turco (UPNE 2012)

ISBN-10: 1584650222 AND ISBN-13: 978-1584650225
A constant source of inspiration for many years.

Covered in Rhyme (Poetry: its Forms & Terms) by Alan J. Carter and Bernard M. Jackson
(QQ Press in two parts, UK, £6 incl. of p&p. Rest of world postage on request).

Part 1, by Bernard, covers 37 forms.
Part 2, by Alan, is a glossary of literary and poetic terms.

Muse & Metre by Dr. H. Tulsi, ed. of Metverse Muse (India) - and Bernard M. Jackson

Moving Words, Forms of English Poetry by Derek Attridge (OUP).

242 Mirror Poems and Reflections by Dr Marc L. Latham (Kindle or print edition)

You Only Guide Me by Surprise: Poetry and the Dolphin's Turn by Peter Sacks.

The (brilliant) Judith Lee Stronach Memorial Lecture on the Teaching of Poetry, delivered on 7 May 2010 by Peter Sacks.

Literary Forms with Poetic Implications (2): Univocalism (plus Lipogram and Transgram)

... 'neglected by legends' ... Leanne Moden

A Univocalism is a piece of writing, emanating from the constrained writing techniques of Oulipo. A Univocalism only allows for the use of one vowel, which may be repeated.

There is a rather good poem, keep my secret, in this style here on the Cambridgeshire NaPoWriMo site by Leanne Moden of Ten Years' Time.

• Univocalism listed on the Found Poetry Review (and here)

You might also enjoy reading about, or experimenting with, the Lipogram, a 'back formation' with a long history ...

• A Loquacious Location of Lipograms on the Phrontistery site (and here)

The Lipogram is joined by the Liponym and the Liponol. 

You can read about the Transgram here.

New Forms (18): The Paradelle

Sunset at Wivenhoe

The Paradelle is a fiendishly difficult form!

I had not heard of it until Robert Lee Brewer issued a Paradelle challenge on the Writer's News Poetic Asides blog, which you can see here.

Serendipitously, I was reading at PoetryWivenhoe last week and discovered that Peter Kennedy, the group's Administrator-cum-Webmaster-cum-Treasurer, had a poem, 'Paradelle of a Thousand Ships', published last autumn on the London Grip website here (you will need to scroll down a bit). If you click the link, you will find an explanation about the unusual origin of this form!

• Read about the form here on the Poetic Asides blog
• A Paradelle anthology (ed. Theresa Welford), available from Amazon