Poetry

[A_Non_Ymous]

Very good :D

I hope it was amusing. If it achieved it's goal, I regard it as
successful. "Good" verse is harder to do than simply
being entertaining. My intentions are not so high as that.

I enjoy structured poetry, but I'm no expert when it comes to the forms.

There's a nice book by John Hollander called Rhyme's Reason, that
gives a description of a number of forms, and gives verse examples, sometimes
written to order.

Take a look at the "double dactyls" form. From your examples of humorous
verse, I have a suspicion you could do something pretty good within that
form. Warning: it's a short form, but "technically demanding". The biggest
demand is on one's ingenuity.

I actually find it easier to write with rhymes and a regular rhythm - but I admire those who can write free verse.

Free verse in English is hard to write without becoming long-winded or
trite. Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) is harder still, because it's
easy to fall into bombast.

French vers libre isn't really completely "free." It still uses a pattern of
end-rhymes, but the line length may vary within the form, and it isn't to
a set classical pattern, the way a Petrarchan sonnet is.

"Cadenced verse" (cf. Walt Whitman and D.H. Lawrence) is a kind of English
free verse that has been popular at times. It often leaves me cold, but that's
no reflection on its value.

I lack the confidence to come up with much which isn't facetious - anyway bawdy verse has a fine ancestry; even TS Eliot indulged.

Nothing wrong with it. I like bawdy verse, when it's amusingly handled.
Your "doggerel" was very amusing, by the way.

Something else I like is the poetry of scorn. One of my favorite examples
is John Dryden's attack on Thomas Shadwell, "Mac Flecknoe." It's in mock
heroic couplets, and in places it's absolutely deadly. Shadwell would be close
to completely forgotten were it not for Dryden's denunciation. Dryden also
did a nice job on Richard Flecknoe in passing and by association. Of course,
Andrew Marvel (of "To His Coy Mistress" fame) got Flecknoe first. He must
have been a tempting target. :lol:

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

Re: Lowering the tone ... (by request)

. . .
I'd like to see what Doc and Jerico and
DeeCrowSeer can do with this. I'm tempted to try my hands and feet at
a skeltonic for this occasion. After your sterling example, I'm feeling "inspired."

LSN

So you throw the gauntlet. :D

Just picking on the hyperverbal members of the community. :lol:
That's why I mentioned you, Dee, and Jerico. Bill, too, if he decides to return now
that the election's over. :roll:

Jagged, Rymdolov, Uthorian, and l'أ‰tranger, too. Verse pأ¥ Dansk, Svenska, Deutsch,
or Franأ§ais is fine. Not everyone can appreciate verse in those languages, but then,
not everyone can appreciate verse at all.

Takes up the gauntlet

Here is a bit of an excuse for not coming up with something more clever...


Doc's contribution for the honor of the Muse elided

Nice break from my serious stuff. I'm sure to have something more clever when my head clears.

It seemed pretty nice to me. If you could compress the last 7 lines to 6,
it's an octet-sestet sonnet of a sort, reminiscent of a Petrarchan sonnet,
but with irregular lines, as in vers libre.

So you just invented your own version of the sonnet. W.H.Auden once
commented (in The Dyer's Hand) of the American penchant for inventing
poetic forms rather than adhere to conventional patterns. He thought the
inventiveness was both a strength and weakness -- the weakness because
the need for constant invention produces somewhat cranky results, sort of
like a home inventor.

Fortunately, your own contribution is free of such crankiness.

My own observations about the academic scene are now causing
me to contemplate a Petrarchan sonnet on the same subject. What
I have in mind is more a bit of ridicule and scorn than your more
thoughtful lyric. Writing in the 3rd person, or with an assumed
character "mask," makes it easier to do. Remember (by chance)
my comment some time back about people needing masks to
speak or write freely? It can work at more than one level, I find.

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

Just when you thought the tone couldn't get lower...

The Augustan elegance of Doc's metrical meditations on the academic condition gave me an
idea. I can't manage Augustan elegance -- I'll leave that to the more Olympian-inspired
among us. I can do the "Olympian" mode only if that numinous mountain has become a
rendezvous point for the bourgeoisie. :lol: However, pseudo-classical I can handle, and
what is more pseudo-classical than a sonnet?

I like to play the "sonnet game" with a couple of friends. We put together a list of end-
rhymes that follows one of the accepted Petrarchan patterns. It is not safe to assume
that these efforts are inspired by imbibing strong drink. We only write as if we're
inebriated.

(We don't attempt Elizabethan sonnets. They're a lot harder to pull off with something
resembling success. I won't go into the reasons unless someone wants to discuss the
matter).

At any rate, we arrived at a truly strange, unwieldy collection of words for the end-rhymes.
They were selected round-robin, and as you'll see, we kept trying to mess each other up by
selecting words we were sure would be awkward. (I think we succeeded in messing each other
up pretty well.)

Here were the words we arrived at:

decision
taboo
cockatoo
precision
envision
ado
impromptu
derision
shell
discommode
chatter
well
antipode
splatter

Quite nasty, as you see. A funny complication: when one person suggested "cockatoo,"
another (not me) misheard it as "cock or two." This produced a good deal of mindless
hilarity, as I'm sure you can understand.

However, if presented with a stupid joke, one should see if it can be employed in the
verses. I thought of an idea that could use the mistaken substitution of "cock or two"
for "cockatoo." If you spend years in academic environments, you meet some unusual
people. Most university professors are pretty ordinary people, but some of them...

Anyway, I knew one guy, a professor in the art history department where my wife
was studying for her master's degree. He was given to getting into unseemly incidents,
fraught with scandal, and that unsettled the nerves of the others in his department.
When there was a sex scandal at one point, they breathed a collective sigh of relief
when he evaded being implicated. I often wondered how they managed to cope with
his "adventures" in being "different." They seemed more than a little disgusted, however.

And that gave me the starting point for the following. It's very lightweight.
I hope people will find it somewhat amusing.

---

The Professor Escapes
آ© Copyright 2004

The council couldn't come to a decision
On deeds illegal or perhaps taboo.
Some fondled freshmen, or a cock or two:
Enough to summon law court's cold precision?
A Madman, Sage, or Pervert? To envision,
Sans أ©clat of morality's ado,
His sacred need to b*gger, impromptu,
Unstung by lash of public's vain derision,

Lies far beyond imagination's shell.
His smarmy, well-oiled ways can discommode
All decent men, and set their teeth a-chatter.
His diseased mind and acts define the 'Well'
By illustrating its foul antipode.
His vile defense no more than semen's splatter.

---

Not inspiring, the way Doc's effort was, but my motto is, "anything for a cheap laugh."

The number of 3-syllable words in the list put me through more than a few contortions
trying to make the verses come out more-or-less correctly. It's close enough.

For those who are particular about such things, I'll point out that the sonnet above
suffers from a technical flaw. Petrarchan sonnets are structured as an octet-sestet.
Each of those stanzas is supposed to be logically "self-contained," as it were. In the
example above, the argument of the octet runs into the first line of the sestet. This
is frowned upon by sticklers.

If anyone is interested in playing the sonnet game, we could (as a forum) construct a
set of end-rhyme words, then each have a go at it. If you're interested, say so in this
forum, and I'd be willing to co-ordinate the effort.

LSN

[HawkLord]

Wow nice to see my little topic is growing... I think confining yourself to styles can produce good things sometimes but you have to be careful or it can appear too forced. For example, you have to be careful when using rhyme schemes as they all too often seem extremely forced. I used to have this trouble a lot. Anyway, I'll try to write another wee poem for anyone who wants to read.

Golden Light

Golden light is calling me to
Follow and bask in the shade of
Days I thought passed long ago.

Sunlit fields and hazy dreams
Of things so many ages before
The memories come back to me.

It feels closer now, I don't
Know why I let out a sigh
Of pure pleasure.

Now this is the life,
This is my life,
This is the way to live.

Take me back oh golden light
Please take me there,
To that sunlit land of laughs.


A nice happy poem there about the wistful feeling

[Terentek]

Beautiful

Hi Hawkwlord...
Beautiful.
Sigh...
Nigel.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Wow nice to see my little topic is growing... I think confining yourself to styles can produce good things sometimes but you have to be careful or it can appear too forced. For example, you have to be careful when using rhyme schemes as they all too often seem extremely forced. I used to have this trouble a lot.

A form with end-rhymes is a blueprint. It's up to one's own ingenuity how well or
badly one handles it. Agreed, it can produce results both good and bad. That begs
the question as to whether a more unfettered approach doesn't labor under the same
disadvantage. ;)

As a counterpoint, I'd observe that an unfettered approach, where traditional forms
are disregarded, must of necessity either design some new, unifying principle for each
new work (in effect inventing a new form for the occasion), or dispense with organizing
principles entirely. The latter is very rarely done, and I can't recall ever seeing it done
successfully.

W.H. Auden once remarked in an essay that he approached a new poem with the
thought, "Here's a verbal contraption. Let's see how it works." Traditional forms
certainly possess the "verbal contraption" aspect. So there's a "gimmicky" side to
the more demanding forms that makes for pleasure and amusement when the
writer's intentions are welded to the form. The "expression" in Shelley's
"Ozymandias," for example doesn't amount to much, when you take it apart
analytically. The complex sonnet form he utilized lend it greater power, along
with his pure verbal imagery and contrasts.

I'm reminded of the French poet Stأ©phane Mallarmأ©'s comment (I'll translate freely)
that a poem isn't written with ideas; it's written with words. Quite. :lol:

I think of working within a given form as a lot like doing an extended tai chi form
for the verbal portion of the mind: it sort of forces one to draw on regions of the
brain that one doesn't often use. It's an interesting intellectual challenge to solve
the problems of putting together a structured statement or argument within the
confines of, say, the villanelle. Dylan Thomas used the villanelle form in his well
known poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," to good effect. Most
people don't think of him as tradition-constrained. ;)

So the forms exist as a challenge to people who are willing to give them a try. One
learns things in the process of trying to use them. I'm not saying it's easy.

This all sounds heavy-duty theoretical, and it's coming from someone who has
never written a poem in his life. I indulge in versifying because I find it amusing.
So take my comments with a grain of artificial salt substitute. :lol:

LSN

[Mikey_C]

This thread's got me going! I've just dug out a poem from my teenage years (when I was trying to be serious about it!) which could perhaps be described as my only published work, as it appeared in a highly obscure hand-typed Tolkien fanzine called "Spell" (I think that was a reference to magic rather than dictionaries...)

I caught sad steel from a meteorite
I wrought me a sword and went to fight
With graven rune on bold blade blue
An evil awful ogre, who
Had grown in my land for many years;
Unseen, but guessed at by the fears
Of those around me. Now I strode
Up the bitter, broken road
To the cave where dreadful dwelt
The fiend I followed, for I felt
The horror of his hidden hide
Pin me to the mountainside.

But sad steel strength is strong enough.
It's magic will last long enough
To blast with runes this wintry sky,
To make a doleful demon die;
So, strong of heart I struggled on
Until I reached a peak upon
Which there stood the wicked wight
Who studied me, then I had sight
Of the frowning face I sought to find
Which first stared at me, then behind;
My breath caught as I chanced to see
That the fiend I feared to fight was me!

I stared deep in those steady eyes,
Found nothing I did not despise;
I drew my sword and turned to fight
This thing that stood six times my height.
His eyes like cats' eyes in the dark
Glimmered as his talons sharp
Fell fiercely on the battered blade
That hung by his side; he was arrayed
In dark rags and dim tatters drear
And he spat as he grew coldly near
As though from a dull, dark dream awoke
He raised his sword for a fatal stroke.

I swerved, and then my sad steel sang
As through the air it swung and stung,
Biting through his hardened hide;
The black blood poured in rivers wide.
Enraged by pain, the ogre roared
And stamped and spun his massive sword
Cutting chasms in the ground,
But still my sad steel sword-stroke found
A target every time it fell
Which to my mind was good and well
For then I dealt a mighty stroke;
He sank to the ground with his back bone broke.

So I came back to my kingdom fair
To be welcomed by the people there
And praised for saving all their lands,
But yet I know, it was not my hands
That did those deeds, renowned in song;
For all my power must belong
To sad steel from a meteorite;
Of such I wrought my weapon bright.
And now it is no trying task
To tell all men who come to ask
That sad steel older than the Earth
Is worth more than a wise man's worth...

It still has a certain "je ne sais crap". We had a little creative writing group in Sixth Form. Everyone else wanted to be Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; I wanted to be the bloke who wrote "Beowulf".

PS Count me in for the sonnet game!

[A_Non_Ymous]

This thread's got me going! I've just dug out a poem from my teenage years (when I was trying to be serious about it!) which could perhaps be described as my only published work, as it appeared in a highly obscure hand-typed Tolkien fanzine called "Spell" (I think that was a reference to magic rather than dictionaries...)

<Verses elided -- please check out Mikey_C's work above.>

Good job handling couplets. I'm impressed. They're hard to keep under control.
You've obviously got a knack with traditional forms.

It still has a certain "je ne sais crap". We had a little creative writing group in Sixth Form. Everyone else wanted to be Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; I wanted to be the bloke who wrote "Beowulf".

You sound like Auden. He fell in love with Anglo-Saxon poetry while
studying it at Oxford under an obscure don named J.R.R. Tolkien. :lol:

I agree it has its attractions.

PS Count me in for the sonnet game!

We have one brave soul here. ;) Actually, I think Mikey_C is a ringer, and he
already has experience at this. Don't make the rest of us look too bad,
pal.

That's 2 of us. I'd like to get a few more participants, and then we can start
picking the end-rhymes. Let's use the Petrarchan sonnet form, because that's
the easiest to handle. The 3-quatrain + couplet form of the Elizabethan
sonnet is so tricky that only people like Shakespeare managed to handle it
well -- and even he didn't manage it all the time. (I'd guess about 20-30
of his ~150 sonnets "work" all the way through; the rest of them have
nice lines and turns of phrase, sometimes nice stanzas, but run into problems.)

Since I'm the foolish instigator, I'll describe the rhyme scheme, and I'll pick
the first word, you can pick the second, and we'll rotate through any other
participants until we have the requisite 14 words.

The results will be interesting. I guarantee they'll be different. :lol:

So who else is interested in particpating? Doc? Dee? Jerico? PWV?
TheAdlerian? Danisty? Bob? Etive? Anyone?

No grades will be assigned, nor do any of us plan to give up our day
jobs for a career on the poetry lecture circuit. :lol: Think of this as a
gag, and let's see what different people produce. Humorous or scatological
verses are more than acceptable.

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

sonnet game: ground rules

We're going to pick a total of 14 words to serve as end-rhymes for Petrarchan sonnets.
Before we pick the first word, I want to establish the ground rules, so that everyone
understands the terminology being used. This is necessary because there are many people
with a good intuitive understanding of this stuff who've never learned the terminology.
(An historical example: William Butler Yeats didn't learn the "scientific" version of this
until he was already a published poet; he worked by what "sounded" right, and he had
a very good ear.) Other people have learned slightly different terminology, but should
recognize the concepts, as long as they can translate things into their own terms.

So to begin:

There are several variants of the rhyme scheme for Petrarchan sonnets, but one of the most
common follows the pattern listed here:

1 - a
2 - b
3 - b
4 - a
5 - a
6 - b
7 - b
8 - a

9 - c
10 - d
11 - e
12 - c
13 - d
14 - e

Now some words of explanation. First, note that I broke up the pattern of the 14 lines
into a set of 8 lines and a set of 6 lines. These are "stanzas" or verse paragraphs, and
are called "octet" and "sestet" respectively. Many writers of sonnets put an initial
image or situation in the octet, then comment on it in the sestet. You don't need to
do it that way, but that's one of the motivations for breaking it up in that fashion.

Next, if you're unfamiliar with the terminology used for end-rhyme patterns, you might
ask, what do the "letters" associated with each line mean? Each letter defines a rhyme
sound. Lines with the same letter should rhyme with one another. It is not typically
acceptable to use the same word over-and-over for, e.g., the a-rhymes, but I've seen
people use homonyms, and that can work well.

Now an example. I earlier listed a collection of end-rhymes 2 friends and I selected to
play this game. I'll give the list here again:

1 - a - decision
2 - b - taboo
3 - b - cockatoo
4 - a - precision
5 - a - envision
6 - b - ado
7 - b - impromptu
8 - a - derision

9 - c - shell
10 - d - discommode
11 - e - chatter
12 - c - well
13 - d - antipode
14 - e - splatter

Note that all the "a" words rhyme with one another; similarly, all the "b" words, etc.

My friends and I were trying to mess each other up when we selected these words.
We did 2 things that I don't recommend be done heavily: we picked a lot of 3 syllable
words; we picked a lot of words whose final syllable is unstressed. The problem with
3 syllable words is that typically, the line is only about 10 or 8 syllables long (for iambic
pentameter and tetrameter). Three syllables consume 30 % or more of the line, and
and the consequence is that it's harder to shoehorn a meaningful statement into its
confines. Three or four syllable final words should be used with moderation. We should
be better behaved than my friends and i were in this.

The unstressed syllable at the end creates a metrical problem. Iambic
feet (the "natural" poetical unit in English) consist of two syllables, the first unstressed,
and the second stressed. The way this is sometimes designated when graphing the
scansion of a line is with symbols like - ' to indicated unstressed-stressed.
If you end the line with an unstressed syllable, it's called a feminine rhyme in English.
One common practice is English poetry is to permit an extra syllable in the line then,
so that there are 11 syllables in a line with an unstressed syllable at the end.

Here's the pattern of scansion for a typical iambic pentameter line:

- ' - ' - ' - ' - '

and here's the pattern for an iambic pentameter line with a final unstressed syllable:

- ' - ' - ' - ' - ' (-)

The final unstressed syllable in effect doesn't "count."

Note that perfect adherence to iambic scansion isn't required, but on the whole,
it works pretty well. If you want to play games with the scansion, أ  la John Donne,
feel free to give it a try. ;)

I would give some of the bizarro-examples we cooked up using the original
rhyme words, but they might be considered a bit too over-the-top for a
family forum, like this one. :lol:

So much for the theoretical end of things. We should get started on selecting a
set of end-rhymes soon.

LSN

[HawkLord]

I would like to take part in this game... but I really know nothing of all this terminology and I fear I would rather mess things up a bit...

I have to get my English teacher to teach me all this stuff! All he did when we were doing poetry was gave us poems to read then we had to do poems 'in the style of' them, or else he gave us something to write a poem about. I never knew about all this complicated stuff!

[A_Non_Ymous]

I would like to take part in this game... but I really know nothing of all this terminology and I fear I would rather mess things up a bit...

I have to get my English teacher to teach me all this stuff! All he did when we were doing poetry was gave us poems to read then we had to do poems 'in the style of' them, or else he gave us something to write a poem about. I never knew about all this complicated stuff!

So Mikey_C and HawkLord and I make 3 participants so far.

Hawklord, I wouldn't be worried if you find the terminology of the "rules" for, stuff like
scansion outside your personal experience. Having a good ear for the rhythm is what's
necessary, and it's clear you've already got that.

As for the end-rhymes, those should be clear enough.

I don't object on technical terms to a short-line French sonnet, for example.
If you figure out lines with fewer than 8 or 10 syllables, and you're happy with
it, it will be fine. "Whatever works" is the pragmatic approach to this stuff. It's
a craft, not a science. ;)

There are 3 so far; let's give a few more people a chance to join, too, then we'll
get started. When we pick the end-rhymes, I've got the first pick, Mikey_C has
the 2nd, and HawkLord goes 3rd. If you guys want, since you're among the first,
each of you can get a rhyme "letter" as your first word. That is, I'd get the first
"a" rhyme, Mikey_C would get the first "b" rhyme, and HawkLord would get the
first "c" rhyme.

If we get 14 participants, each person will get to select a word. If we have fewer, we'll proceed in round-robin order until all the rhymes are chosen.

LSN

P.S. If this works out okay, we should try the ballade or chant royal. Based on his
handling of those long stanzas of couplets, I suspect Mikey_C would have no
problem with chant royal. I think it's sort of hard, myself.

[DeeCrowSeer]

I'd like to recruit Doc and DeeCrowSeer, but Doc is busy at work, from the sound of things, and Dee is busy arguing over who is being cast as Elric in the planned movie. :lol:

What makes you think I can't combine the two?

Jude Law,
What are you for?
You make me snore.
You're such a bore.
You know that you're,
not welcome anymore.
Walk out the door,
that leads directly to the Earth's core.

Paul Bettany is better, see?

***

Hey Jude,
You've misconstrued,
The words of Michael Moorcock in reference to the casting of his proposed Elric movie... Sorry dude.

***

Obviously the above are rubbish, and they don't follow any formal pattern, but... er... well, I studied poetry at University, and I'm not going back. Always move forwards...

[A_Non_Ymous]

That one was amusing. :lol:

As for the sonnet-game, since you're uninterested, that's that.
A pity. I was looking forward to what you might do. Wit applied
to these undertakings is a nice change of pace -- many people,
when confronted with the prospect of writing verse, get solemn.
I don't think that would've been a problem for you.

By the way, I don't consider this activity "poetry," as I think I've
made it clear in earlier posts. If people manage to achieve that
level of accomplishment, more power, etc. I'd call this activity
"versifying" to make the distinction. Many of us (me most of
all) aren't poets.

LSN

I'd like to recruit Doc and DeeCrowSeer, but Doc is busy at work, from the sound of things, and Dee is busy arguing over who is being cast as Elric in the planned movie. :lol:

What makes you think I can't combine the two?

Jude Law,
What are you for?
You make me snore.
You're such a bore.
You know that you're,
not welcome anymore.
Walk out the door,
that leads directly to the Earth's core.

Paul Bettany is better, see?

***

Hey Jude,
You've misconstrued,
The words of Michael Moorcock in reference to the casting of his proposed Elric movie... Sorry dude.

***

Obviously the above are rubbish, and they don't follow any formal pattern, but... er... well, I studied poetry at University, and I'm not going back. Always move forwards...

[A_Non_Ymous]

another ballade

More comments on academia. A friend complains endlessly about his department head at a certain unnamed medical school. This one was written to give metrical form to his whining. Note that the expression "crusty genius" was coined by the friend. I'm acquainted with the department head in question, and the noun can be accepted only as irony, not fact. "Legend in his own mind" seems أ  propos. :lol:

LSN
---
Ballade to a Genius, آ© 2004 by LSN

He is a work of art like graven jade.
His intuitions often prove prophetic.
A word from him suffices to persuade
A bestial mind to strive to be noetic.
His prose exceeds the bounds of the poetic.
His reprimands will make one's conscience bleed.
To know him is to swallow an emetic.
A Crusty Genius needs no guiding creed.

آ§

His mental farts deserve a cavalcade.
His idle thoughts are stunningly eidetic.
All those who please him not he will upbraid
With language vitriolic and splenetic.
And those who find his attitude pathetic
Will soon be crucified for their misdeed,
With crushing force, dynamic and kinetic.
A Crusty Genius needs no guiding creed.

آ§

He pays no heed to reason's feeble shade.
He's sybaritic one day, then ascetic,
Another's choice is something to degrade,
The cockeyed reverie of a luetic.
To other men his lusts might seem hebetic,
But Daphne knows, and so does Ganymede,
That all his passing fancies are cathetic.
A Crusty Genius needs no guiding creed.

آ§

Fair play and decency are mere synthetic
Complaisances his whims will supercede.
A eunuch without organ or prosthetic,
A Crusty Genius needs no guiding creed.


---------------------------------

[Mikey_C]

:lol:
More of those three-syllable rhymes! You will be kind to us, won't you?