Patterns and sonnets
This is from an interview with Mike Snider, a poet with a weblog:
I make my living as a programmer, and [Christopher] Alexander’s ideas have made a real difference for me there—I write better code, and I do it faster, because I look for re-usable patterns. I do think it has relevance to the poetry I write, as well. I don’t think it’s an accident that poetry in every culture, at least until the last century…, was composed of repeating rhythmic patterns. [Emphasis mine.] It works on other levels, too—the sonnet form solves a particular class of problems.
… I’ve been thinking about Alexander’s notion that patterns and pattern languages are built from observing the solutions people repeatedly discover or adopt when faced with common problems, and how that applies to, for instance, the sonnet. It isn’t accident or the support of elites that have kept the form alive and vital for nearly 700 years in virtually every European language. [Emphasis mine.]
We humans are built to create constrained universes for us to express ourselves within.