Poetry Forms - the letter C

[DoctorGamgee]

That is just great, Daisy Gold. I liked it quite a lot. You may not be keen on it, but you have captured the spirit of New Year to a T.

Well done!

Dr.G

[Primula]

I really enjoyed this, Daisy! This verse especially :

Beat the drums, let trumpets play,
Sing and dance the hours away,
Then to greet the new-born day.
And raise a toast to the New Year.

Sounds exceedingly Tolkienish - a meeting of 'tip the glasses, crack the plates' with all the horn honking at the Party perhaps. Or like something Sancho would've scratched into the walls of Bilbo's pantry some late somewhat soused evening.

[Primula]

Time to resurrect our poetic muses! Let's take a little trip back to Ireland for a small dose of bardic verse, the type that is sometimes termed 'thickly textured.'

The Casbairdne(cross-bOOyer-dne) is a challenging little jog into internal rhyming. According to the good Mr. Turco it is:
...
* a quatrain stanza (FOUR lines per stanza)
* of heptasyllabic lines with trisyllabic endings. (Seven syllables per line, with the last word having 3 of them)
* Lines two and four rhyme
* Lines one and three consonate with them (echo the sound without directly rhyming)
* There ought to be at least two cross-rhymes in each couplet.
* Two words alliterate in each line (that is, they start with the same letter)
* The final word of line four alliterates with the preceding stressed word.


1. x x b x (x x ac)
2. x a x x (x x bc)
3. x x x b (x x dc)
4. x x c x (x x bc)

Of course, that all sounds a bit formidable - but we can go for simplified/adapted as needed, indeed the example he then gives he admits does not use the trisyllable endings.

Two verses from his rather long example, a modified Old English poem titled The Ruin by 'Alexander':

Well wrought, this wall that fate felled,
The fort failed, smoke cast its pall,
Snapped tall roofs: towers fallen
On the trollmen's stone-hard hall.

Rime scoiled gatekeeps; the mortar
Shattered, slate-shower-shields moulder.
Age ate them, wright and wielder;
Earth-grip clasps builder, elder.

etc. etc.

These are a bit like doing macrame with words, so this is my own rather little attempt:

Pilling the Cat

I'm a sinful simpleton,
Must shun, wasted medicine:
Clawing cat runs mettlesome,
Again same jaw jettisons.



Your turn! Have courage - I promise the next one is much easier.

[DoctorGamgee]

Horrid Hepta-Syllables

Devlish devised rhyming scheme,
Vicious, vexing, heart rending.
Heaven help us! Now 'tis seen,
Horrid Heptas -- Mind bending!

Seven Syllables are hard
For a giggling guy like me!
Singing Sonnets, leads toward
"I'm an Iamb" unlike thee!

Dr.G

[Primula]

Oh, well done! You inspire me to go try again - though whether I find it 'postable' quality or not remains to be seen.

[DoctorGamgee]

I am not sure I did it right after looking at the pattern (something I didn't do first time around--I just read the directions without the graph). And I only spent about 10 minutes on it. I will try to find time for a second go-round and match it exactly to what you have shown ...

But thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

Dr.G

[daisy gold]

Devlishly good Dr G.

Poor kitty...can't take it's medicine. You make me feel for your cat Prim, well done.

Can't say I have ever heard of this kind of rhyme but then we did very little Irish Lit in school...that's over 40 yrs ago. I sure things have changed since then.
Prim , This is a very tricky one . I don't understand the part about 'two cross-rhymes in each couplet'.
I'll go for the simplified version first.

[daisy gold]

Back again.

Sanctuary

Rambling roses, colours bright,
Pleasing perfumes bring delight,
To my garden, day and night,
Soothes my soul, then peace alights.

[Primula]

A cross-rhyme is where there is a rhyme in a different line, but it lands somewhere in the middle instead of at the end. Here's an example with both an embedded cross-rhyme and a 'regular' (i.e. one is at the end of its line) one:


Earthspring, the sweetest season
Loud the birdsong, sprouts ripple,
Plough in furrow, ox in yoke,
Sea like smoke, fields in stipple.

(from 'Spring Song' - anonymous Welsh)
Some forms leave it up to the poet where to put the cross-rhyme, others specify which syllable/line it must appear on.

And your poem is beautiful! Wow, I would paint that on my wall in scripty lettering just to have it greet me each morning.

[DoctorGamgee]

That really is lovely, DaisyGold. Well done.

Thanks for the clarification, Prim. I will give it another go now...but I teach this morning, so won't be able to post it until this afternoon.

Dr.G

[daisy gold]

Thank you DR G and Primula.

The clarification only makes it clearer how hard this type of poem is.
But I too will have another go.

[DoctorGamgee]

One more try:

First Day of Class...

Sitting silent, students sigh
Drumming dude enters and sits.
Teacher talking; learned, wise,
Walking, wond'ring, "I'm the Pits?!"

Cunning Crafter, breaks the ice
Deftly dancing, stunning spin
Mildly melting, wayword mice
Guile and gambolling, onward, in!

Dr.G

[Primula]

Ooh - it even sort of makes sense, which is a difficult hurdle to cross on some of these. Go forth, brave teacher, go forth and conquer!


Hm...

Gone the way of the Stegosaurus

Like the morphing meteors
Seen (oracle's semaphore),
Dying, orphaned dinosaurs,
Might enmorgue in metaphor.


Um...okay, it kinda makes sense... I asked my kids for four three-syllable words that sort of rhymed and this is the result.

[DoctorGamgee]

Dense Doc's Poetry

Dense Doc's Head's a Stalagmite
(Much more drippish...Stalagtite?)
Either answer, Throglodite's
Putrid Poem wastes Kilobites!

[Primula]

We should save some of this for our next Bad Poetry contest, I swear.