Falling Apart
Falling Apart
A Poem That Breaks Form (Eventually)
A Poem That Breaks Form (Eventually)
Poetic form holds things together. A sonnet carries its meaning through structure and precision. A sestina repeats its words like an incantation. A villanelle circles itself, building on its own echoes.
But what happens when a poem can’t hold itself together?
This assignment challenges you to write a poem that begins in a recognizable form—a sonnet, sestina, villanelle, haiku, or something else structured—but then fractures.
You have two choices:
The Poem That Comes Together – Starts fragmented, disordered, chaotic—but slowly finds rhythm, meaning, or structure.
The Poem That Falls Apart – Starts perfectly ordered but collapses into something broken, unfinished, or distorted.
The shift in form should mirror the shift in meaning. Something is either falling apart or being found.
Start with a structured form. Sonnet, sestina, villanelle, haiku, or another poetic form that sets clear expectations.
The shift must be meaningful. The poem doesn’t just break for no reason—what is falling apart or coming together?
Use formatting and language to reinforce the change. If your poem is breaking, do the lines shorten? Lose rhyme? Stumble? If it’s coming together, does it start to sound more certain?
Don’t be random. Even chaos has a purpose.
What is changing in this poem—the speaker, the world, the memory?
How does breaking (or restoring) form reflect the poem’s meaning?
How much of the original structure remains by the end?
If the poem falls apart, what does that destruction reveal?
"The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot – Begins with structure, then disintegrates into fragments.
"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop – A villanelle that tries to control itself but falters.