In 1983, the late great poet John Hollander published an odd volume of verse called Powers of Thirteen<\/i>. Every poem in the collection was 13 lines long, with 13 syllables in each line. What\u2019s more, the collection consisted of 169 poems \u2014 that\u2019s 13 squared, of course. Nobody had ever, so far as we know, written in this form before, and I\u2019m not sure that anybody has ever practiced this 13×13 style in the years since. What could this famously traditionalist poet have possibly been thinking?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible that, having mastered most every other form (the guy could kick out five sonnets between brushing his teeth and taking his morning coffee), Hollander was just looking for a new challenge. But I think his Powers of Thirteen<\/i> experiment was also an argument for the power of constraint. One reason that poets write formal verse \u2014 using the 14 lines of a sonnet, for example \u2014 is because they believe that constraints actually unlock creativity. In other words, rules can, paradoxically, liberate us. And Hollander was saying that it scarcely matters what the rules are, and even totally random rules, invented on a whim, like his 13×13 scheme, can provoke better work.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll hear the same thing from deeply religious people. A cloistered Dominican nun, who had not been permitted to leave the grounds of her convent for nearly a year, told me, \u201cI have never felt so free.\u201d What could she have possibly meant? A bilingual poet once told me that she preferred writing in French to writing in English, because \u201cFrench has fewer words, so I have to be better.\u201d How could taking away the vast English vocabulary liberate a poet to be better? Sometimes the most stylish people wear only one color (it always seems to be black.) How come?<\/p>\n
Constraints force us to be resourceful. With only have a certain number of syllables at his disposal, Hollander could not vary his sentence length for effect, so he had to rely more on vocabulary. With only black clothes in one\u2019s closet, one has to think up new and creative combinations (maybe a different shoe on each foot?). If a pop singer wants radio play, she has to keep her songs to three minutes, four tops \u2014\u00a0unable to use extended jams or solos for effect, she has to be more effective with melody or lyrics or production effects.<\/p>\n
As it happens, nobody much reads the Powers of Thirteen<\/i> poems anymore. They weren\u2019t Hollander\u2019s best work. But it says something that a great poet, at the height of his powers, decided that the next step for himself was to give himself bizarre new restrictions. In the years immediately afterward, he did go on to produce some of his most lasting works. He died in 2013, so we can\u2019t ask him, but if we could, he might say that the discipline of Powers of Thirteen<\/i> was essential to his growth as an artist. He might say that we all need to figure out how to make do with less, or to squeeze ourselves into some corner that, paradoxically, gives us room to stretch out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1983, the late great poet John Hollander published an odd volume of verse called Powers of Thirteen. Every poem in the collection was 13 lines long, with 13 syllables in each line. What\u2019s more, the collection consisted of 169 poems \u2014 that\u2019s 13 squared, of course. Nobody had ever, so far as we know, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1377,"featured_media":10568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n