Friends! Poets! Both! Time for playing with short forms. Let’s try the CAVATINA. Just recently came across this older Italian form, but to me, it seems like a sonnet variation--kinda? It features rhyme and syllable counting that together create a nice rhythm, and a couplet at the end. Here are the rules:
Ten-syllable non-rhyming line,
Alternating with a four-syllable rhyming line,
Repeated at least three times,
Ending with a ten-syllable line couplet.
Found this cute example online:
Zilch Muse by Ryter Roethicle It's not the night or the music, it's me My muse has gone Too much work, too much pressure is enough She has withdrawn I sit here my glass of port as company Ideas, I have none My notes zilch, there's no inspiration there All ideas blown So I sit here drinking a lovely port No light has shone Another sip, appreciating God’s gift to me I must postpone No worldly wisdom to impart to you This time my foot is in some other's shoe.
Here is an article with many more examples: CAVATINA
One of the first challenges I ever tried when blogging was to try a sestina. Somehow I believed that the harder a challenge is the better the poet I would be (which I realize it is not). However I did love how it is constructed from mathematical principles. Where the last words are allowed to rotate in an intricate order.
The sestina is as you all know based on repeating the end words according to a specific pattern, that follow an intricate spiral repetition.
I soon realized that sestina are both hard to read (with a few exceptions) and I still wanted to keep it shorter and yet both more readable and writable. Therefore I wanted to carry it through as a less challenging (shorter) form, where the writer is challenged by the repetitiveness of the last words and still create a new unique sense in each line. I started searching and found the triquina that have been featured here before, and searched for the quartina, and found examples that is basically expanding the triquina's simple cycle of words.
I wanted something different that was a "downscaled sestina", and after some thinking I got this way of using the end words instead:
So as you see it has the same repetition as the sestina where the end words are the same in consecutive stanzas. The poems will turn out to be 18 line poems which is much more manageable than the 39 lines of a sestina. I have tried different meter, but frankly I think it works much better with free verse, so I challenge you to write something really good her.
For anyone not yet familiar with writing the sestina it use the end-words to create the effect. The choice of end-words is not unimportant. A word with different meaning and same pronunciation makes the creation easier.
Take for example the word fair that can be a noun, adjective or adverb, to that we can add the the use of compound words like unfair and the homonym fare that can be a noun and a verb. As I have not found this form anywhere else I can only share a mediocre poem of my own:
CHEERING AND BELIED WE DRIVE
we’re hunting constantly on overdrive while we ignore that it’s becoming worse ignoring truth and hail the one who lied the one who whispers with a vacant face
the climate change, a truth we cannot face we prefer the ignorance and be belied so we can burn the gasoline to drive while for the polar-bears it now is worse
but though it will for humanity be worse there’s always reasons for a faster drive then one day we shall our children face and tell them that “I knew the truth and lied
my comfort was important when I lied and when I die it’s you who have to face the earth’s destroyed by me, for you it’s worse so join me on this hearse for final drive
down the mountain-face we together drive when cheering and belied it can’t be worse
Hello
to all the pond dwellers and visitors ~ For this weekend challenge, we are going to try our hand in writing loop poetry.
Street Art, Ottawa City by Grace
This poetry form was created by Hellon. There are no restrictions on the number of
stanzas nor on the syllable count for each line. In each stanza, the last word of the first line
becomes the first word of line two, last word of line 2 becomes the first word of line 3, last
word of line 3 becomes the first word of line 4. This is followed for each stanza. The rhyme
scheme is abcb.
Example (the rhyme scheme is in bold print):
How I See You
Eyes that don't see
see the things that you do
do you wish me to describe
describe how I see you.
Skin so delicate
delicate as a rose
rose that will blossom
blossom as it grows.
Hair moving gently
gently you tease
tease...softly whispering
whispering summer breeze.
2. Couplets mixed with 4 line stanzas. The last word, first word scheme is maintained in the stanzas.
It can also be used in the couplets. Rhyme scheme is ab, cc, defg, hh, ii, jklm, nn, oo. Example (Only the stanzas below follow the last word, first word scheme) :
For Sunday's challenge, please write a new loop poem using any of the variations above.
The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the form challenge. We
stipulate that only poems written for this challenge may be added to
the Mr Linky. Management reserves the right to remove unrelated links,
but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link Monday.
I look forward to reading your words ~ Grace (aka Heaven)
