Poetic form and structure have rightly been seen for centuries as means of emphasising and clarifying the meaning of the text – of rendering its transmission more powerful than were it merely rendered in prose. They're key contributors to what makes a text a poem – indeed, if it's to be successful for the reader as poetry, even so-called free verse obeys some minimal recognisable principles of structure, for example at the level of the sentence. But one can readily take form too far. I've latterly noted a movement towards making form and structure so dominant that the message of poems becomes practically irrelevant.

This trend shows up in several ways. In its least aggressive manifestation it shows up as incomplete or imperfect implementation of recognised forms, a classic example being the ghazal. This originally Middle Eastern form is confoundedly difficult to render fully in a language such as English as it relies heavily on special characteristics of classical Arabic (compactness, optionally ambiguous vowels, the resulting multiple possible meanings and so on). However, language apart, the ghazal has a very specific structure on several levels.

At the most superficial level, the ghazal consists of between five and fifteen couplets with all lines the same length regardless of metre. At the next level, each couplet must be complete of itself, both thematically and structurally. Beyond that, there are numerous subtle expectations (such as an ideal rhyme structure) that are probably beyond the capacities of English to reproduce readily. So let's limit ourselves to consideration of just the first two levels.

Any poem described as a ghazal (even on this more limited basis) should therefore as a minimum consist of a sequence of discrete ideas, each represented entirely by a single couplet, all lines of all of which couplets being the same (let's say – syllabic) length. So it's really disconcerting to find so many supposed ghazals in English that consist of no more than a piece of free verse chopped up into couplets, the text (and even individual sentences) running continuously across couplets, the individual lines of which often vary in length. When is a ghazal not a ghazal? When it doesn't comply with even the basics of what makes it a ghazal, regardless of what we choose to call it. A mere bunch of couplets isn't one.

Annoying as the dummy 'ghazal' is, it's most likely just a matter of negligence or ignorance, but to me a much more troubling manifestation of form over content is the proliferation of newly invented forms that override, or even entirely ignore, effective communication of a poem's semantic content (its idea or message) to the reader. For example, I've seen numerous supposed poems consisting of just one word per line, which (for me at least) are very difficult to read other than as exercises using the analytical left brain – obstructing holistic appreciation of the message. But it gets more complicated yet. I recently found online a proposed poetic form consisting of two-word lines using word replication in the following form, which is easier to demonstrate than to describe:

This word

This next

Next time

Next try

Try hard

Try square

Square dance

Square guy

  which seems to have little capacity to convey any message other than 'look, what cunning word play!' And I've even encountered a supposed poetic form based on the Sudoku numeric grid puzzle popular in newspapers. I wasn't able to follow the complex description of this in detail as I'm hopeless at that kind of puzzle anyway, but both this and the one demonstrated above (and numerous others, often also too complicated to follow easily) seem to have one factor in common – they have nothing to do with any primary semantic message the poem is supposed to impart. Indeed many of them are so restrictive that the range of possible alternative messages is reduced to almost nothing – at worst the semantic content being actually dictated by the form.

Despite the obvious absurdity of some of these 'new forms' 1 I don't think we should dismiss them entirely from consideration out of hand. It's important (and even interesting) to ask why the tail is to such an extent wagging the poetic dog. Important because if poetry ceases to convey messages of significance to readers, the poetic art will die out except as a pseudo-ambrosia for some writers' clique; and interesting because it reflects on a possible psychological shift in our societies. So let's give the floor to one advocate (edited for brevity and my comments inserted in [square brackets]):

What Makes a New Poetic Form Successful?

 Inventive forms engage readers in creative ways, enticing them with an experience that’s valuable to the content (not just to be clever).
[An assertion that seems merely to beg the question.]

 Inventive forms welcome readers as collaborators. Readers actively participate in creating meaning [...].
[Making the reader do all or most of the work? If the meaning must be created by the reader, surely we can dispense with the poet?]

 Inventive forms amplify the visual experience of poetry.
[Granted, provided it's not at the expense of transmission of meaning.] 2

 To read a poem in an inventive form, readers may angle their heads or rotate the page in order to read vertical, sideways or upside down text.
[Is this a positive attribute? Seems awkward for the reader.]

 Inventive forms ask readers to slow down and meander, to investigate and question.
[Does that mean 'puzzle over it'? So it's really a puzzle rather than a poem? Or are we inviting structural analysis rather than trying to convey important ideas?]

 Inventive forms ditch the standard “rules” for a reason and can make readers sweat it out a bit.
[If that's the reason, it seems a little sadistic. If I want to sweat a bit I'll go for a run. When I'm reading I want to be inspired, not to sweat.]

 The structure of inventive poems is designed to carry and support the poem’s subject. Since it is built-to-spec, readers trust it to hold.
[I was under the impression that all poetic forms had that intent, but whether inventive forms actually achieve this remains an open question in each specific case. And does the second sentence actually mean anything at all? ]

Personal opinion, fair enough – but where's the evidence? Taken all in all, this really means little more than "I think these novel forms are good". A legitimate position, but I wonder whether the 'non-poet' reader would generally agree.

At the same time, the advocate already quoted does state a few reservations: some magazines can't handle novel forms, "there’s a risk of being clever instead of adding texture and meaning to the poem", and "readers can be lazy". I can understand and sympathise with the publishing problem, but I always thought cleverness was a positive attribute to aspire to, and one that would be needed in order to add texture and meaning to a poem. Maybe the word has changed its definition since I learned the language. Finally, I'm seriously jarred by the implied assumption of superiority in accusing readers of 'laziness'. I've always thought (obviously erroneously) that the reader was the person for whose pleasure (in the broadest sense of the word) we wrote, not someone to be shaken out of apathy by us (presumably against their will).

Considering all this (and more of the same) I've come to the conclusion that advocates of innovations such as these are writing solely for other poets (or at worst solely for themselves) without regard for what the public at large might desire. So poetry's essentially become a private amusement for yet another (if virtual) social network of self-appointed mutually congratulatory cognoscenti (otherwise known as a cult). I can't help being reminded of Marinetti's ludicrous Futurist manifesto of 1909.3

Except for those addicted to social media (which is a very selective, fashion-driven and unrepresentative subset of the population at large) public appreciation of modern poetry is almost extinct – just ask any general bookshop manager. This isn't because the public are philistine, it's because the poetry they're being offered has nothing to offer them. One of the most telling things I've found on asking people is that they find poetry 'boring' – that the content does nothing for them. But this won't be fixed by proliferation of fancy forms – only by writing well about things that matter to people.

Just like any other art, if poetry is to survive it absolutely must return to taking into account what the public wants and enjoys – memorable, clearly and emphatically expressed ideas of importance to them personally. 'Joe Bloggs' 4 and friends don't want to turn the page upside down or sideways to read the words, they want the words to be easy to assimilate and to impress them. Wordsworth (for all his poetic sins) is still popular, as is Dolly Parton – two radically different poets but with something critical in common: their poems are memorable because they clearly and elegantly express ideas that actually matter to everyday folk.

Maybe we should get back to that ideal?

 [1] courtesy of Auroras & Blossoms: "The Kindku is a short poem of seven lines. The syllable pattern is 7 / 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 or 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 5.
The Kindku must include seven words that are taken from one specific source — a poem, a book, a newspaper article, etc. In the case of a book or long piece of writing, those words must come from the same page.
Words must be used in the order they were found. Their placement also depends on the line:
Line 1 starts with word 1
Line 2 ends with word 2
Line 3 starts with word 3
Line 4 ends with word 4
Line 5 starts with word 5
Line 6 ends with word 6
Line 7 starts or ends with word 7
Kindku poems can have titles and punctuation. No matter the topic covered, they must sport a positive tone."

 It's hard to imagine how there could be much hope of coming up with a durable text with significant meaning, given these restrictions. Yet another apparent triumph of form over message?

 [2] I remember a poem that was laid out as the silhouette of a swan. But that's all I remember about it - not the subject, not the poet, nor even the magazine I saw it in. I found it very difficult to take in as a significant part of it was a sinuous string of single and double word lines snaking down the page, representing the swan's neck. It was much too hard work so I gave up, because the form completely obscured the message for me. But I suppose I must be 'lazy'.

 [3] apparently the ramblings of a bunch of aggressively drunken young thugs

 [4] the smart person of any gender whom you might meet on the street