WORKSHOP WITH LESSONS FOR MEMBERS
LESSON 1:
FREE VERSE POEM WITH DOMINANT IMAGE
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PSALM 23 A Psalm of David
The Lord is my shepherd;
Thou preparest a table before me |
A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER Walt Whitman A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. |
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HAND ME THE REMOTE Todd Sukany Since it’s just after 12. Grade school? Check. Middle School? Check. High School? Check. Parents, peers, my fellow statesmen: You’ve handled my affairs as best you could and I’ve followed—as best I could. But today, since it’s just after 12, I believe I’ll replace the AAA’s, exercising all rights, privileges, and responsibilities appertaining thereunto. So if you’ll hand me the remote, I’ll press on.
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SWEET WINE OF LOVE Jean Even Red wine of Grace, Sweet wine of Love, Flowing from heaven's arms of compassion To embrace me in this dark place. Help me surrender unto You, O‚ Lord, Till I'm submerged in heavenly peace And granted pardon in freedom's passion. Red wine of Grace, Sweet dove of Peace, Light Your bright fire within my soul, Pure love from God in paradise above. AUNT SYLVIE IN COMMAND Tom Padgett Only a few saw Aunt Sylvie smile or heard her bitter laugh in that tidy house where she ruled Uncle John and their four sons. In starched apron, cardigan sweater, hairnet, she mopped, swept, polished till rooms shone. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and cloves. An authoritative crow interrupts memory, clamoring for backyard territory, presuming squatters’ rights to the birdbath, preening, flicking rainbows out of the sunlight. Peace shattered by their rival’s volume, the usual starlings scatter--after a fuss. Three boys followed Uncle John to alcohol and other trouble she kept quiet. Discounting gossip of neighbors, she mopped, swept, and polished life. Sunlight reflecting rainbows on linoleums served Aunt Sylvie for sentiment like love.
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STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. |
Diction: Frost built this "simple" little poem
out of short words, mostly one-syllable words, only one word with three
syllables. [Frost claimed he wrote this poem with one dip of his ink
pen while he was in the midst of writing a longer, harder poem.] Rhythm: Frost chose a "simple" iambic tetrameter (duhDUM, duhDUM, duhDUM, duhDUM) meter, four feet, eight syllables per line. Rhyme: "Simple" masculine rhymes of one-syllable words were used. In each of the first three stanzas because the b rhyme of one stanza becomes the a rhyme of the next, we call the rhyme scheme of the poem aaba bbcb ccdc dddd to show how the stanzas are connected. Note that both the change in the rhyme scheme and the repeated line in the last stanza suggest completion or resolution of thought. ASSIGNMENT: Imitate this form in a sixteen-line poem (either serious or humorous) to see how difficult it is to write a "simple" poem in a tight form. ASSIGNMENT: Visit the Frost web site at http://www.robertfrost.org/indexgood.html. Read three other Frost poems while there. |
DAYDREAMING |
GRAY CHRISTMAS Tom Padgett It’s Christmas Eve, the ground is white, yet we did not go out tonight. We would have gone if we were young-- at least I like to think we might. But as a song already sung, a rocking-horse to which we’ve clung, a coat too small now thrown away, our youth’s worn out--the bells have rung. The years have changed the games we play, we don’t require ice-skates or sleigh, no bob-sled run, no alpine ski-- our slalom’s solemn, you could say. Tonight, therefore, at home we’ll be, we girls and boys, now elderly, who used to dance around the tree-- who danced in glee around the tree. |
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Mark Rozzo
in "The Height of Nonsense," a review of The Complete Verse and Other
Nonsense by Edward Lear, edited by Vivien Noakes for publication
this month (January 2003), reminds us that Lear perfected the limerick for
an 1846 children's book. The form had been around for several years
before it first appeared in print in 1719. It has variants with two,
three, four, and five lines and can in fact in one variant be sung to the
hymn "Blest Be the Tie That Binds." Most of us when writing limericks
choose the five-lined form with a,a,b,b,a rhymes and the fifth rhyme
different from the first, but Lear's choice repeated the rhyme of the first
line for the fifth line as in this one: There was an Old Person of Hurst,
Additional examples of Lear's limericks can be found at http://edwardlear.tripod.com/
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Lee Ann Russell's example of a limerick for her
How to Write Poetry: Ballad to Villanelle (2nd ed. 1996, p.
75) is the traditional five-line form: who pounced after 'skeeters and gnats, and when he caught one, he thought he was done unaware they begat and begat.
Limericks are often bawdy.
Ron Padgett
(Handbook of Poetic Forms, p. 99) wrote a limerick about this problem
when writing limericks A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical, But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. ASSIGNMENT: Write a limerick, or better yet, write two for this page in future issues. You may use the limerick form you choose. |
WORKSHOP POEMS WRITTEN BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 3
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LIMERICK Dan Adkison Whither is the dither, weather clown? I'd call you weather man but most would frown. You might not be a man at all, For women fit the bill as well, And clown correctly seems to nail it down. CEREAL KILLER WEARS OUT WELCOME Tom Padgett The visitor ate his Coast host's peas, Then asked him to "Give me most roast, please." He gobbled and stuffed, He more than enoughed On everything--even Post Toasties. LIMERICK Dan Adkison Chief of TV Meteorology, You may impress a few, say two or three. With graphic gradients and virga, You guess no better than my grandpa! I'd rather stick my head outside and see. THE LUCIDITY POETS’ RETREAT Tom Padgett In April, to sharpen our skills, We go to those Arkansas hills, And like tasty fish Laid out on a dish, We leave when we’re stuffed to the gills. |
VICTORIOUS at AMOROUS Todd Sukany My best friend, a David Kidney, Placed bets on the fella's savvy But a crooner of song Can seldom be wrong On semantics they now disagree LIMERICK Harding Stedler In a ditch on the edge of Lorain Stood a lady in grimacing pain. She cursed at the priest, And all her pain ceased. And her audience dissected her brain. ACTING OUT Todd Sukany Round mounds of the succulent meat Raised actions beyond indiscreet. Their passion released With Amherst's artiste-- Joined Emily's boy-toy elite
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LESSON 4: A POEM ON ABSENCE OR LOSS
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| THE HOUSE ON THE HILL Edwin Arlington Robinson They are all gone away, The House is shut and still, There is nothing more to say. Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away. Nor is there one today To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say. Why is it then we stray Around that sunken sill? They are all gone away. And our poor fancy-play For them is wasted skill: There is nothing more to say. There is ruin and decay In the House on the Hill: They are all gone away, There is nothing more to say. |
Poet's Choice of Forms:
This month we are dealing with the subject of absence or loss. You
may write free verse or formal verse as you choose. Our example poem
is one by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935).
Rhyme: The poem by Robinson has been a very popular example of a villanelle, and you may choose to write one: Nineteen lines rhyming aba aba aba aba aba abaa with two lines echoing as refrains throughout the poem. If you mark the refrains with capital letters as A and A', the rhyme scheme is AbA' abA abA' abA abA' abAA'. [Riddle Nine = Cuckoo] Rhythm: Robinson chose to write four-stressed (tetrameter) lines. Dylan Thomas's equally popular villanelle "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" uses five-stressed (pentameter) lines.
For more about Robinson and his poetry visit this address: www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/robinson.htm. Be sure to read the page about our example poem.
For more on Dylan Thomas's villanelle (including hearing
him read it), visit
www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=151
Assignment: Send your workshop poem on absence or loss to
thirtysevencents@ microcore.net.
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| LOST POEMS? Wesley Willis Undiscovered poems engulfed in flames, Verses curdle upward in crackling fire, Some survived authors' unknown names, Sentimental moments now just mire. Captured on outspread wings of eagles, Soaring from mountains to arching rainbows, Like oceans-skirted songs of seagulls, As spring-summer-fall-winter nature knows. In rhythm, those lost words of heart and soul, Untouched emotions, danced atop the waves Viscidly tossed about to and fro, Recaptured symphony or settled in graves. As dew drops floating in eternal bliss, Songs rang from needles of whispering pines, Expelled from a rose with moistened kiss, Relinquished, revitalized from our minds. Gentle poems, each like caressing snowflakes, Lost poems, with beauty hungered after, Great poems, with mighty, shaking earthquakes, Brought children joy and synonymous laughter. DOING IT MY WAY Darwyne Tessier So much I always thought I knew-- A different pathway to pursue-- Too different, or so I thought My lessons learned, never taught. Even now with eyes closed tight Seem always to appear in sight Those traits. I now see everyday Somehow my road led me astray. My effort not to be the same has only left myself to blame. Faults I saw many years ago are now a part of me, and so I pass on these obvious flaws and hope with very little pause my children one day won't lament but will accept my best intent. SENILITY (Tom Padgett) Senility had hit a friend of mine, a little Oriental chap I loved. He waited outside while the specialist turned to me and took a curt approach: "He's losing bearings, and from here on out it just gets worse and worse." I thought of plans we had for years to come and miles the two of us had traveled in years past. Born in a distant land, no family here, he looked to me for sole support. I had our key to separate but contiguous lives. Still I relied on him as he on me. Except for food and laundry, he took care of himself, had no problems with his health. But when the mind gives way, one shifts from now to then without control--what's next? I thanked the expert for his time and left the agency. I saw my friend and sighed, "Poor little 1978 Toyota, I have to buy you a new transmission." |
THE STEPS TO DADDY’S PLACE Tania Gray The sun feels warm on my face now that the wind has died by the steps to Daddy’s place. I came back just in case he watched how hard I tried. The sun feels warm on my face like a special touch of grace as I open the door and look inside on the steps to Daddy’s place. Here was gardening’s home base, here his hanging onions dried; the sun feels warm on my face as it did when in spring’s race he planted seeds where they would bide near the steps to Daddy’s place. And now I vainly search and chase in efforts he would gently chide. The sun feels warm on my face by the steps to Daddy’s place. MOONS FOR STRIKES Harding Stedler Today, you run through fields again where wildflowers bloom. To rhythms of birdsong, you make your way up hills to paint rainbows for the Master. The uneven gait is gone, the pain, the years that took their toll. In that timeless world where you are once again a child, you flirt with stars and roll moons for strikes. I cannot fathom how far eternity is from Earth. My heart cries when it seems so distant I cannot touch you. In that World of Forever, you have new beginnings, and there is no scent of flesh. |
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WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND? Christina G. Rossetti Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you; But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I; But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. |
Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) is
often called England's finest woman poet
though not as well-known as Elizabeth |
POEMS BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 5:
| THE LAWN Nancy Powell The lawn is such a chore-- mowing takes most of a day and edging certainly is a bore. I wouldn’t have it another way. To make it grow, I fertilize. Tell me, is that dumb or wise? SPRING FATALE Todd Sukany Sheets of winter unsettle my dreams While Trtanian prophecies fuel Fantasies of dismemberment, drawing, quartering, even road kill. Responsible rodent? Punxsutawney Phil FARMER’S ALMANAC Darwyne Tessier As spring approached with winter’s fade, Dad started to study his new planting bible. Reading it through, he carefully made Our crops depend on this source--reliable, Using methods from centuries past, Giving foreknowledge what weather would be. However, when summer burned up so fast, The truth was there for us to see. [Laster's riddle proverb: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Laster's riddle = A short-lived second marriage] |
SAPPHIC Gwen Eisenmann Sappho has said there is a form poetic useful to say a single thought surprising in brevity and as matchless in meaning as sunrise can be. THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE Barbara Magerl You like to play hide and seek, Sometimes it drives me mad, And if you're not around all week, You leave me very sad. But if you share your shiny face, My world is filled with fun. My life takes on a faster pace-- I'm wedded to the sun. NATURE NOT NODDING Tom Padgett The grasshoppers won't stridulate, the poplar leaves won't nictitate, the bluejays won't vituperate-- where is the nod from Nature? To lack of data, I object, I need a symbol to inspect, emotion I can recollect-- where is the nod from Nature? Somehow my poems grow rampageous, striking out in ways ambagious, ending nowhere advantageous-- WHERE IS THE NOD FROM NATURE? |
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The most common form for haiku is three short lines, the first and third about the same length, the middle one a bit longer. No rhyme. Haiku are about common everyday experiences involving nature, the essence of |
a moment keenly perceived. It is important to make the reader look at, or hear,
or smell, or taste, or touch something.
Because traditional haiku are made of seventeen Japanese sounds, many people believe a haiku should have seventeen syllables: 5/7/5 in three lines. Others deny this requirement. Here are two examples of haiku, the first by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), the second by me. old pond . . . a frog leaps in water's sound spring's excessive rain . . . squishy marshes in our yard Okefenokee! Assignment: Write a haiku or two. |
POEMS WRITTEN BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 6:
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HAIKU
Wesley D. Willis The plush open fields chase after the rolling hills, never catching them. Nestled in the pines HAIKU Pushy crocuses Bees throughout the hive
Chrysanthemum Summer
wind sings sweet, |
HAIKU Gwen Eisenmann Sunflowers planted Birds that sing in morn Spring grass that comes up Flowers bloom in June
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LESSON 7: A CHUCH-CHU (STOP-SHORT)
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The stop-short dates from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-8 A.D.), but it was perfected in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It is a four-line epigram of five or seven words (words, not syllables as in haiku). Every line has the same number of words, so we have a short stop-short of twenty words or a long stop-short of twenty-eight words. Although the Chinese examples employed rhyme, authorities on translating them into English put aside traditional rhyme and meter. Now the form when composed in English follows these translations and has neither rhyme nor regular meter. The chuch-chu is a four-line epigram in which only the words stop, not the sense, which goes on, while ending in shocked awareness or surprise. Like haiku, the chuch-chu is not titled usually, but you may title yours if you wish. Try one, at least.
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SHORT CHUCH-CHU (20 WORDS) Anonymous: Time of day is unimportant, Age only restrains my urge, The shadow of your neck Upon my pillow . . . ignites fire. Alice Didier: Pond holds floating lily pads, Buds open pink and gray. Waterbug stops to sun himself. Frog's tongue snaps him . . . lunch! |
LONG CHUCH-CHU (28 WORDS) Thomas Catterson: The third day and fifty straight hours. Park by day and clubs by night tell When sleep takes leave of working poets Who know the depth of . . . kissing words. Tom Padgett: Last night's moon fished rainy, flooded streets, Trolling gully washes with frantic, evacuated earthworms. Today dried, lifeless, shriveled bait on pavements Catches the noonday sun's eye . . . fisherman's luck! |
POEMS WRITTEN BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 7:
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UNTITLED Velvet Fackeldey The sky a sickly yellow, black clouds hang too low. We stampede toward the basement. Dare to look back . . . tornado! LOST LOVE Nancy Powell
Morning sun I welcome you, |
HORSE FEATHERS Tania Gray The senior poet confessed she took a
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Examples: HENRY VIII Edmond Conti Said Henry VIII Accepting his fate With grace and gall, "Into each reign some wives must fall." CARY GRANT Anonymous Leach, Alexander Archibald has long been called more elegant ly Cary Grant. |
PERCY
BYSSHE SHELLEY Roberta Simone Percy Bysshe Shelley Thought all fish smelly And never learned to swim-- Unfortunately for him. ST. JEROME Vonna Adrian St. Jerome abandoned brush and comb and bread and jam and everything nice. He did it on divine advice. Assignment: Write a clerihew or two. |
POEMS BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 8:
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Judy Young William Shakespeare, WINNIE THE POOH Winnie the Pooh, GARY LARSON Gary Larson, SYLVIA BROWNE Sylvia Browne, HENRY FONDA Henry Fonda, |
SIR
LAURENCE OLIVIER Tom Padgett Sir Laurence Olivier MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR BARBRA STREISAND & THE DIXIE CHICKS Barbra Streisand and the Dixie Chicks,
WILLIAM JEFFERSON KATHERINE HEPBURN |
LESSON 9: A HAIKEL
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HAIKODYSSEY Bill Lower Long story made short: Travel. Fight. Strange creatures. Fight. Home to loving wife. HAIKY DICK Captain swears revenge. |
THE HAIKLET LETTER Tom Padgett Preacher and lover FOR HAIK THE BELL TOLLS |
POEMS SENT BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 9:
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DEHAIKERANCE Velvet Fackeldey Guys bond in river.
HAIK WITH THE
WIND THE HAIKS OF WRATH Dust Bowl folks go West, |
HAIKACLE ON 34TH STREET Dan Adkison Man thinks he's Santa, Gives convincing evidence, Town buys his story. THE HOLY HAIKLE Dan Adkison God creates the world, Calls it good--then it goes bad. Saves it at the end. THE HAIK OF
SORROWS |
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Here is a little French form some of you know, but others don't. It is fun to write. Usually it is an eight-line, four-stanza, rhyming poem with repeating lines. It always has eight lines, but you may set them up in four couplets or two quatrains or one octet. Line one comes back as line four and line seven. Line two is repeated as line eight. When composing lines one and two, design them so they can be broken at different places to change the meaning slightly. Note the rhyme scheme: ABaAabAB with the capital letters representing repeated lines. Here are two examples, one using off-rhymes, the other tighter. Try your hand at the triolet.
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HABITAT Michael J. Bugeja "The woodpecker's back there on the feeder," The endangered one," she says. "I told you
About his red cone head
like a hatter. The woodpecker's back. There, on the feeder,
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ED AND GORDON Tom Padgett My two Louisiana friends moved north to gain financial ends, soon learned true happiness depends for two Louisiana friends *NOTE: In Louisiana, Monroe is pronounced MUN'row |
POEMS SENT BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 10:
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SPRING'S VANITIES
Pat Laster
I stood in awe before the spring
of toadfrogs. In the lily pond,
my jonquiled prom dress mirrored "zing!"
I stood in awe! Before... the spring
ran shallow. Jumped and tripped. Oh, sting
of elbow. Crushed, in wet chiffon
I stood, in awe before the spring
of toadfrogs in the lily pond.
HUM, LITTLE BIRD |
VICTORY, OLE! Tom Padgett The matador tells lies of when
TRIOLET?
Gwen Eisenmann
Maybe if I stuttered, I'd write
a triolet, eight syllables
in every line, eight lines. I might,
maybe. If I stuttered, I'd write
a silly triolet, a fright
to read its many trillables.
Maybe if I stuttered I'd write
a triolet, eight syllables . . .
[Padgett's riddle = Mailman]
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| Several of you have submitted cinquains for your monthly poems. I
decided everyone might like to try this little French form. A cinquain
(SING-cane) means a grouping of five. Adelaide Crapsey invented a syllabic
verse form of five lines with two, four, six, eight, and two syllables. It
often moves iambically, but it is not required to. It should move toward a
climax, frequently employing surprise. Adding rhymes to the form usually makes a
humorous poem. A sequence of cinquains (two or more) is another variation. |
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TRIAD Adelaide Crapsey
These be |
LAUREL IN THE BERKSHIRES |
Assignment for Lesson 11: Write a cinquain or a cinquain
sequence, serious or humorous.
POEMS BY MEMBERS FOR LESSON 11:
| AFTER
SUMMER Bill Lower Say we STILL TREMBLING Two hands |
THE LIBRARY Darwyne Tessier Books, books-- words that eyes read hungrily, exciting the mind and imagination-- Books, books. HISTORICAL BIAS Across |
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| When X. J. Kennedy was here for the Missouri State Poetry Society convention, at one of his readings, he introduced us to his brat books, poems for children about spoiled children who get their comeuppance. With slight modifications we have our genre for this month: our brat is a children's poem for adults (so the violence won't offend sensibilities). It has four loosely iambic tetrameter (approximately 8 syllables) lines, the first of which gives the brat's name, lines two and three set up his or her brattishness, and line four brings about his or her surprise downfall. The title indicates how children should behave. This month try your hand at writing brats. |
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BE KIND TO DUMB ANIMALS, NO.1 Tom Padgett The BB gun of Percy Fitzhugh LISTEN TO OTHERS A little girl named Tori Dyme KEEP YOURSELF CLEAN, NO. 1 A dirty boy named Gary McGrath |
BE KIND TO DUMB ANIMALS, NO. 2 Tom Padgett Learning to can, Katie Crocker TOMMY TINTOES DON'T BE GROSS That same little Tori Dyme |
LESSON 13: A RIDDLE
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Long before our language evolved into the form we call Modern English, and even before it was Middle English, we had English poetry. One of the interesting types of poems we had in Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) poetry was the riddle. In one of the four main collections of Old English verse, the Exeter Book, which was copied somewhere around 975 (over a thousand years ago), there are 95 riddles. One of them, Riddle Nine, is given below in a modern translation. Old English verse was organized around four beats with pauses between the second and third beats and at the end of the lines. Only one poem from this time used rhyme. Emily Dickinson, who lived in the nineteenth century, liked the riddle form. However, she used regular rhythms and rhymes. Here is one of her riddle poems. Your assignment for this lesson is to create a riddle poem, either in free verse or metrical form. Send it in and I will hide the answer on this page. The answers to the riddles by the unknown Anglo-Saxon poet and Dickinson are also on this page. Don't try to find them until you have worked out the answers.
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NOT WITH A CLUB THE HEART IS BROKEN
Not with a club the heart is
broken,
Magnanimous of bird |
RIDDLE NINE
In former days my mother and
father If you heard someone talking |
LESSON 14: A SIJO
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The sijo (same form for singular and plural, pronounced SEE jo or SHE jo, with the J sounding like the Zs in Zza Zza Gabor) is a Korean form having like haiku three lines and a strong foundation in nature. However, the sijo has a total of 44-46 syllables, with individual lines averaging 14-16 syllables. Also unlike haiku, sijo may be narrative and may use similes and metaphors. Line 1 introduces a situation or problem, line 2 contains development, and line 3 features in its first half a turn that in the second half of the line resolves tensions or questions. Sijo are, first and foremost, songs, traced back to 17BC, with roots going back to even earlier Chinese quatrains. They were (and often still are) accompanied by musical instruments, and still have that song-lyric quality. A sijo is a spoken or written account of a story, description, revelation, portrayal, report, record, history, or statement of connected events in order of their happening. Themes center on an idea or emotion such as love, loneliness, belief, disbelief, acceptance, or rejection. "Classic sijo adheres closely to syllable restrictions, but it doesn't just count syllables. It is more phrasal than syllabic, as Larry Gross points out in his article "Experimenting with Sijo." Each long line is divided into quarters of 3-5 syllables. Sijo may appear as three lines on the page, or through the influence of Western editors, they may be broken into six lines. Your assignment is to write a sijo or a sijo sequence (two or more related or connected sijo) in either format. (You may title them or leave them untitled. You may use capitalization and punctuation or not.). Here are examples of both formats.:
SIJO
Kirsty Karkow
one-two rhythm of the stallion trotting down a country lane
he moves through woods over a bridge across a stream and up a hill
well-worn beneath his clockwork feet the dusty road leads home
SIJO
Rick Long
Bandanas wave from cedar boughs; beneath, a pyre or stone.
On army land Geronimo sleeps, clouds pass over the sun.
This warrior cry inside my head, an echo or just a dream.
THREE SIJO
Faye Adams
It’s Like Snow
Drifting like snowflakes, petals sift through air. White bubbles float down,
skip over stark, black tarmac surface, blown by breezes into piles, form
snowdrifts against sidewalks; pear trees green up, shed white coats of spring.
Heaven Scent
Early bloomers become spring's roadside dressing in lavender allure.
While we, in our wanting way, call them red-bud trees, heart-shaped
leaves with
universal appeal discard blossoms to speak of love.
Man From Nazareth
See the man from Nazareth walk by the sea, calling men
to follow him in
a place called Galilee. See how he beckons,
calling you and me to follow him to a home in eternity.
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KAMAKURA: JANUARY SECOND Carmen Sherba Climbing stairs to Zuisen-ji, I go deeper into the hills. In the garden of the temple, narcissus lean against stones. Once at home again, a thought rings true; even stones have friends. CIVIC ATTRACTION Neighbors says our maple tree |
SIJO In my state, eleven species |
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The couplet is a couple, or pair, of lines of poetry, frequently rhymed but not always. The term couplet is also given to a two-line stanza of rhymed or unrhymed verse. The distinction is a couplet may be the whole poem, or several couplets may make up a poem, or couplets may make up stanzas in a longer poem, or couplets may appear as part of another form, as do the couplets which close an English sonnet. Couplets may be open or closed. A closed couplet has strong punctuation (a period, a semicolon, or a colon) at the end of the second line of the couplet. An open couplet runs on into the next line. Here are several examples. For your assignment, write at least one couplet.
SMALL SONG A. R. Ammons The reeds give In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the
robin's breast; |
THE SPAN OF LIFE
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| MEMBERS' COUPLETS: CRUEL DANGER Danger is the need for many Going by the golden rule
AFTER FIVE INCHES OF SNOW
Henrietta Romman
As I look at the clock and lift up my head,
I envy my bed-sheets and jump out of bed!
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DAYBREAK Faye Adams My body creaks, the bones ache, now that I'm fully awake. That bright sun hurts my eyes. My ears reject those morning cries. Feline lament, the cricket's chirp; I need to think about my work. So much to do, the list awaits. Doctor's appointment, can't be late. Must shed this ache in my head, think I'll slip back into bed. |
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