: Re: Avoiding a juvenile/archaic feel in formal verse Formal verse appears vulnerable to seeming archaic because it has generally fallen out of fashion. It may also increase the sense of immaturity,

@BetL639

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I would suggest that poetry feels juvenile when it gives off the sense that the form (meter, rhyme, etc.) drove the composition, instead of the other way around. An extreme example of this is when a poet meanders through multiple subjects just to achieve rhyme (something I see in a lot of children's compositions), but can also be visible in someone imitating old-fashioned formal verse.

Do your poems vigorously express ideas, images, and feelings? Do you focus on what you wish to say, and let the "archaic" style serve your message? Or, on the other hand, do you find yourself trying to come up with things to say that will fit your meter?

Formal verse could be a fascinating medium if reduced to a tool for your work instead of an end of itself. If you expressed modern ideas in an unusual way, formal verse might serve you well indeed.

My suggestion on method might seem a little counter-intuitive. I would suggest that that you try the old-fashioned custom of first working on many imitative formal verse efforts until the style comes to you as effortlessly as possible. Once you understand formal verse from its roots, as it where, it will be much easier to "think in formal verse" and therefore to express your own poetry creatively and individually.

At that point, a formal verse poem about, say, the futility of cat pictures on the internet might feel quite mature and non-juvenile. :-)

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