Heidi Mordhorst

In my own work, I usually write in free verse, but poetic forms certainly have their uses. A poetic form is like a recipe for constructing a poem: each form has rules for how many words or lines or stanzas, or where the rhymes should fall, or what the rhythm should be.

Poetic forms are as various as the languages on earth and the purposes to which poetry is put. I especially love that although some well-known poetry forms are old and even ancient (sonnet, haiku and triolet), many are newly created by poets who “discovered” a form lurking in their own work. Terrance Hayes’s Golden Shovel form, invented in 2010 , Marilyn Singer’s reverso form introduced  also in 2010, and the Skinny, invented by Truth Thomas in 2005, have all inspired poets everywhere to try their own versions.  As this Water Poem series proves, poets are a game bunch fascinated by all ways of playing with words. Show us a new form and we’ll run with it!

I hope you’ll do the same with my own invention, a poetic form called the definito.  I’d written a number of these over the years before I attempted to define the definito; here are the rules I settled on recently.  To stay true to myself, my poetic form is a free verse form!

The definito is a free verse poem of 8-12 lines that highlights wordplay as it demonstrates the meaning of a less common, often abstract word, which always ends the poem.

Here’s an example of an early definito.

IMMACULATE

not a 
      smudge of mud
not a
      jot of rot
      just
tulip leaves of clean green
      just
tulip petals, pure sheen
mingling their
singular spotless hues
                  immaculate 

©Heidi Mordhorst 2008 

Although the definito is a free verse form—meaning you get to choose line length, whether it’s metered or not, whether to rhyme or not—you are constrained to 12 lines and the last word of the poem is the one you are defining. (It’s also the title.) The layout of the poem highlights its use repetition, alliteration, assonance, consonance and rhyme.

There are a thousand water words that could become the subject of a definito, but also up for grabs are the thousand words that might describe water. Here’s one from last year.

PLACID

imagine a place
                   a lake perhaps
unruffled by ripples
untroubled by tides
                  a place of peace and quiet blue
stand and survey
                  the way that calm
skims over the surface–
                                  placid.

©Heidi Mordhorst 2019 

In general, I’m aiming my 8-12 lines at readers 8-12 years old, but you don’t have to narrow your audience that way.  It’s just that brains that age are newly wrapping their heads around abstract concepts and coming across new vocabulary several times a day, we hope!

Here are a few water words and modifiers to get you started, but hey—you’re poets.  Run with it!

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The finish line is in sight, poets! Pick a water-related word and try a definito poem by the end of the day tomorrow, Sunday, April 18, 2020.