2009 Survivor Poetry Challenge: Workshop

[champagne1982]

No, it does not. But it does require consistency of metre: (My emphasis.)

Don't care, myself. But if you want to do it right—right as regards the form, that is—my feeling is that that sample don't fly.

But just my opinion. Depends on how anal you want to be about the form and how you hear the language. Your hearing may differ from mine. Probably does.

Don't really care. You asked for comment, I gave mine.

All I can, or want to, do.

It's lovely that you so gracefully accept gratitude. Please, take mine. I'm sure I offered it.

 

[pushkine]

It's lovely that you so gracefully accept gratitude. Please, take mine. I'm sure I offered it.

You did. Thank you.

 

[pushkine]

OK, here's my attempt at blank verse. I think it's consistently iambic tetrameter, but if you spot something that isn't, I'd appreciate knowing where so I can try to fix it.

House of Foil Windows

You know the place: a run-down yard
Of dead refrigerators, toys
(The broken kind) strewn here and there
Amid the smell of cigarettes.
The husband always is at home,
The wife away. Sometimes there's kids,
More often not. But different cars
All day and night park right in front,
Although you never see the face
Of driver or of passenger.
The giveaway's the windows, blanked
With foil, in basement or garage.
Of course it's drugs. What would it be,
A safe house for the CIA?
Some lab where Dr. Zarkov stores
His Wormhole to the Stars? Get real.
The question is what kind of dope
They have in there—flake meth or weed
Or crack cocaine—and whether they
Will sell a cheaper hit to me.
I am their neighbor, after all.

 

[annaswirls]

Cheers!

I read through with my tippitty tap fingers and the only place it did kind of stumbled was refridgerators... but it could go that way, so I think it is fine.

I like the line- A safe house for the CIA?

I wish you could use this as a double trigger-- nosey neighbor and foil windows! Guess you could take it either way, depending on your inspiration to do the other.

Good to see you back.

I won't say good job on the poem. I promised I would only say bad bad bad.

OK, here's my attempt at blank verse. I think it's consistently iambic tetrameter, but if you spot something that isn't, I'd appreciate knowing where so I can try to fix it.

House of Foil Windows

You know the place: a run-down yard
Of dead refrigerators, toys
(The broken kind) strewn here and there
Amid the smell of cigarettes.
The husband always is at home,
The wife away. Sometimes there's kids,
More often not. But different cars
All day and night park right in front,
Although you never see the face
Of driver or of passenger.
The giveaway's the windows, blanked
With foil, in basement or garage.
Of course it's drugs. What would it be,
A safe house for the CIA?
Some lab where Dr. Zarkov stores
His Wormhole to the Stars? Get real.
The question is what kind of dope
They have in there—flake meth or weed
Or crack cocaine—and whether they
Will sell a cheaper hit to me.
I am their neighbor, after all.

 

[pushkine]

Cheers!

I read through with my tippitty tap fingers and the only place it did kind of stumbled was refridgerators... but it could go that way, so I think it is fine.

I hear that line as

Of dead | refrig | erat | ors, toys​

which is perfectly iambic. (I think.) So I am interested in how you hear it, which obviously is different.

I like the line- A safe house for the CIA?

Thank you. I do too. I hope it's funny (and iambic). I know some will think it is neither.

I wish you could use this as a double trigger-- nosey neighbor and foil windows! Guess you could take it either way, depending on your inspiration to do the other.

I already did the nosey neighbor thing, though possibly not very successfully.

I won't say good job on the poem. I promised I would only say bad bad bad.

Thanks. Actually, it is quite bad.

Meh. It's a contest.

 

[champagne1982]

I hear that line as

Of dead | refrig | erat | ors, toys​

which is perfectly iambic. (I think.) So I am interested in how you hear it, which obviously is different.
Thank you. I do too. I hope it's funny (and iambic). I know some will think it is neither.
I already did the nosey neighbor thing, though possibly not very successfully.Thanks. Actually, it is quite bad.

Meh. It's a contest.

I think it's both. So, bravo! Contest be damned, you've got some decent (and good [not bad nor poor]) poems.

 

[pushkine]

OK, I wrote an Italian sonnet over lunch. I think it follows form well enough for the contest, but I want to ask Lauren (or anyone else with an opinion) whether it satisfies the requirement of a volta at line nine and whether the last line functions as a "golden key." I think they do, but I am curious what others think. Here's the poem:

A Sonnet Singing Love

A sonnet singing love is not a game,
It's foolishness—its author is a tool
Of Hallmark sentiment. Emotion's Rule
Eclipses Reason's Sway and bears the blame

For saccharin meanderings that claim
This love's the One True Flame That Never Cools
Or Starlight sparks her eyne like Heaven's jewels.
Hmm. "Equine defecation" is the name

For verse like this. Instead, be true to love
And no one's fool. Write honestly and well,
Avoid cliché and polysyllables:

I'll meet you at the Marriott hotel.
Please dress like you are Catherine Deneuve.
For love is simply fucking—oui, ma belle?​

Thanks, all.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

It does satisfy the volta and golden key requirements as well as any Italian Sonnet I've read.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Can someone give me feedback on my first attempt at a tritina?


He emerged from depths of Irish whiskey
Grandpa witnessed great grandfather’s cocktail
Wet were waves of death and angry splashes

Sweet redemption swoon and bite like whiskey,
tortured marriage birthed betrayal’s cocktail
love had failed to stop the blood-red splashes

Dry was grandpa, dry in love and whiskey.
Savior scorned and loved in family cocktail
Torn from grandchild’s love in death’s dark splashes

Drowning her in whiskey cocktail splashes

 

[pushkine]

Can someone give me feedback on my first attempt at a tritina?


He emerged from depths of Irish whiskey
Grandpa witnessed great grandfather’s cocktail
Wet were waves of death and angry splashes

Sweet redemption swoon and bite like whiskey,
tortured marriage birthed betrayal’s cocktail
love had failed to stop the blood-red splashes

Dry was grandpa, dry in love and whiskey.
Savior scorned and loved in family cocktail
Torn from grandchild’s love in death’s dark splashes

Drowning her in whiskey cocktail splashes

You aren't rotating the end word order. To quote Lauren:

The last words of each line in the first tercet are repeated as the last words of each line in the other tercets, in different orders: abc cab bca.

so, given your first stanza, the second should have end words splashes, whiskey, cocktail in that order and the third should have end words cocktail, splashes, whiskey. Your terminating sentence should repeat the end words in their original order, which yours does.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

You aren't rotating the end word order. To quote Lauren:so, given your first stanza, the second should have end words splashes, whiskey, cocktail in that order and the third should have end words cocktail, splashes, whiskey. Your terminating sentence should repeat the end words in their original order, which yours does.

OMG!
thank you. I don't know how I missed that. Well, yeah I do. I'm feeling very mentally drained from this monstrous and incredibly boring freelance project I'm working on.

omg.. even as I was writing it, I thought to myself at one point that I wished I could change the order..

feeling very blonde.

 

[pushkine]

OMG!
thank you. I don't know how I missed that. Well, yeah I do. I'm feeling very mentally drained from this monstrous and incredibly boring freelance project I'm working on.

omg.. even as I was writing it, I thought to myself at one point that I wished I could change the order..

feeling very blonde.

Don't be embarrassed. We all do things like that.

When I wrote mine, I spent a lot of time on it, making sure I rotated the end words, yet striving to make it read smoothly despite the repetitions. Just before submitting it, I thought to double-check the form and found that I'd rotated the end words the wrong way around.

D'oh!

Didn't make me feel blonde, though--just very, very gray.

ETA: One quick check (for the sestina also), is that the end word of the last line of a stanza is also the end word of the first line of the next stanza. There's more to it than that, but if you fail that quick check, you're doing something wrong.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

OMG!
thank you. I don't know how I missed that. Well, yeah I do. I'm feeling very mentally drained from this monstrous and incredibly boring freelance project I'm working on.

omg.. even as I was writing it, I thought to myself at one point that I wished I could change the order..

feeling very blonde.

Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii !!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Don't be embarrassed. We all do things like that.

When I wrote mine, I spent a lot of time on it, making sure I rotated the end words, yet striving to make it read smoothly despite the repetitions. Just before submitting it, I thought to double-check the form and found that I'd rotated the end words the wrong way around.

D'oh!

Didn't make me feel blonde, though--just very, very gray.

.......... and you can stop feeling blondes too

 

[annaswirls]

I hate this poem. But I think it meets the criteria.

Rubaiyat Quatrain (5 stanzas or more)
Arabic form that consists of 4-line stanzas (rubai) rhyming aaba. The third line of each stanza becomes the main rhyme of the following stanza. The last stanza sometimes uses in its third line the main rhyme of the first stanza of the sequence. There should be no enjambment between stanzas.


35. Theme #3
Write a poem about the old lady who feeds the pigeons on the town square.

If you walk down to the town square
you always find her sitting there
In her cold hands a bag of crumbs
she sings to us down snow swept stairs.

While flight of feather pigeons come
it’s this sweet song bird lady hums
“Come feed the birds, mum feed the birds
a tuppence for a bag of crumbs?"

The hope held tight within her words
is not the currency most prefer.
The busy stream to work must go
they look away, her pleas unheard.

Nanny winds the key, shakes the globe
feathered pigeons turn to snow
While Mary sings their lullaby
Mama and Papa dine alone.

Morning comes, Papa must try
To teach his son, invest with pride!
Tuppence in hand, son says “yes sir”
Mother smiles and straightens their ties.

To the bank they walk without words
In his pocket, the tuppence burns
Till down the stairs, birdlady hums
“Come feed the birds, son, feed the birds.”

“It’s mine!” he cries, away he runs
To buy a little bag of crumbs
Food for hungry, change for poor,
A wise investment of his funds.

 

[annaswirls]

Okay I hate this one too, but does it work as Rondeau? I plan to illustrate this with photos of the farm.

11. Rondeau
French poetry form with 15 lines written on two rhymes, with three stanzas--a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet, in that order--rhyming aabba aabR aabbaR. Lines 9 and 15 are short, a 4-syllable refrain consisting of the first part of the first line. All other lines should be the same length, with 8 or 10 syllables.

On Reihman Road the children grow
Like wheat and corn, row on row,
With mile on mile of open sky,
With space to wander, wings to fly,
Sycamore strong with roots below.

And could it be just years ago
Stars shone bright with no city glow,
Now the town homes creep close and lie
On Reihman Road.

We do not intend to claim as foe
New neighbors, stones we will not throw
Yet still we hold the memory high.
Where we were born and come to die
In dreams still crops and children grow
On Reihman Road.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I hate this poem. But I think it meets the criteria.

Rubaiyat Quatrain (5 stanzas or more)
Arabic form that consists of 4-line stanzas (rubai) rhyming aaba. The third line of each stanza becomes the main rhyme of the following stanza. The last stanza sometimes uses in its third line the main rhyme of the first stanza of the sequence. There should be no enjambment between stanzas.


35. Theme #3
Write a poem about the old lady who feeds the pigeons on the town square.

If you walk down to the town square
you always find her sitting there
In her cold hands a bag of crumbs
she sings to us down snow swept stairs.

While flight of feather pigeons come
it’s this sweet song bird lady hums
“Come feed the birds, mum feed the birds
a tuppens for a bag of crumbs?"

The hope held tight within her words
is not the currency most prefer.
The busy stream to work must go
they look away, her pleas unheard.

Nanny winds the key, shakes the globe
feathered pigeons turn to snow
While Mary sings the their lullaby
Mama and Papa dine alone.

Morning comes, Papa must try
To teach his son, invest with pride!
Tuppens in hand, son says “yes sir”
Mother smiles and straightens their ties.

To the bank they walk without words
In his pocket, the tuppens burns
Till down the stairs, birdlady hums
“Come feed the birds, son, feed the birds.”

“It’s mine!” he cries, away he runs
To buy a little bag of crumbs
Food for hungry, change for poor,
A wise investment of his funds.

There's a typo in the 4th stanza 3rd line and is this the English tuppence? (slang for twopence)

 

[annaswirls]

There's a typo in the 4th stanza 3rd line and is this the English tuppence? (slang for twopence)

Thanks for the tips, yes, tuppence. Hmm I was just spelling it by the sound of the song! I will go back and make the corrections. Thanks!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

There's just one thing you put 'a tuppence' when in fact tuppence (two pence) is just that two pennies ...... tuppence isn't a single coin not that I suppose anyone but me would know or notice lol

 

[annaswirls]

There's just one thing you put 'a tuppence' when in fact tuppence (two pence) is just that two pennies ...... tuppence isn't a single coin not that I suppose anyone but me would know or notice lol

Ah! Interesting! In the movie Michael only has one coin and I am pretty sure he calls it tuppence. I will have to watch again and pay closer attention. Thanks for the info~

 

[loganforester]

Could someone please look over my attempt at a Curtal Sonnet and let me know what they think.



I remember that look upon her face,
Folded in my circuitous memory,
Sliding under my car after she fell
From her bike, her life gone without a trace.
This deep dark secret was my enemy
And guilt had become my personal hell.

So was it when my life began to fade.
Cancerous carnivores consume my body
As I lay broken in my bedroom cell.
Now let death be the full price I’ve paid.
Don’t tell.

 

[annaswirls]

Curtal Sonnet
Eleven-line form invented by Gerald Manley Hopkins, which a rhyme scheme of abcabc dbcdc. The first ten lines are usually but not always written in iambic pentameter, with the eleventh line always being a spondee (two stressed syllables in a row, as in "Watch out!" or "Stop that!")

Hi Logan. Are you looking for more than "it qualifies?" I took the description and put it into a checklist for you and went through, just technically. I can make comments on style, word choice etc. if you would like.

CHECK Eleven-line form

CHECK rhyme scheme of abcabc dbcdc

Doesn't seem iambic to me, but all but one are 10 syllables, and it says "usually" The first ten lines are usually but not always written in iambic pentameter

CHECK eleventh line always being a spondee

If you get a chance, I just posted two, if you could look over one of them for me, I would really appreciate it as well. I want to make sure I did them right before I submit.

~AS

Could someone please look over my attempt at a Curtal Sonnet and let me know what they think.



1 I remember that look upon her face, a
2 Folded in my circuitous memory, b
3 Sliding under my car after she fell c
4 From her bike, her life gone without a trace. a
5 This deep dark secret was my enemy b
6 And guilt had become my personal hell. c

7 So was it when my life began to fade. d
8 Cancerous carnivores consume my body b
9 As I lay broken in my bedroom cell. c
10 Now let death be the full price I’ve paid. d
11 Don’t tell. c

 

[loganforester]

Okay I hate this one too, but does it work as Rondeau? I plan to illustrate this with photos of the farm.

11. Rondeau
French poetry form with 15 lines written on two rhymes, with three stanzas--a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet, in that order--rhyming aabba aabR aabbaR. Lines 9 and 15 are short, a 4-syllable refrain consisting of the first part of the first line. All other lines should be the same length, with 8 or 10 syllables.

On Reihman Road the children grow
Like wheat and corn, row on row,
With mile on mile of open sky,
With space to wander, wings to fly,
Sycamore strong with roots below.

And could it be just years ago
Stars shone bright with no city glow,
Now the town homes creep close and lie
On Reihman Road.

We do not intend to claim as foe
New neighbors, stones we will not throw
Yet still we hold the memory high.
Where we were born and come to die
In dreams still crops and children grow
On Reihman Road.

The overall form of 15 lines with a quintet, quatrain and sestet are met.

Lines 9 and 15 are correct as a 4 syllable refrain from the first line.

The rhyme scheme appears to be correct and consistent.

I see you are going for an 8 syllable count throughtout. However, line 2 has 7 syllables and lines 10 & 12 have 9 syllables. Overall it's an interesting poem and it's close to form, but not exactly perfect. Not certain how picky people want to be about it. I hope that helps.

 

[loganforester]

Hi Logan. Are you looking for more than "it qualifies?" I took the description and put it into a checklist for you and went through, just technically. I can make comments on style, word choice etc. if you would like.

CHECK Eleven-line form

CHECK rhyme scheme of abcabc dbcdc

Doesn't seem iambic to me, but all but one are 10 syllables, and it says "usually" The first ten lines are usually but not always written in iambic pentameter

CHECK eleventh line always being a spondee

If you get a chance, I just posted two, if you could look over one of them for me, I would really appreciate it as well. I want to make sure I did them right before I submit.

~AS

Thanks for your feedback Anna, I was trying for a 10 syllable count. I struggle badly trying to maintain a consistent meter, so at times that's as close as I can manage. As much as anything, I'd just like an overall impression of whether or not it works as a poem overall and what things lines or words could be improved upon. Thanks for your help.

 

[annaswirls]

Thanks for your feedback Anna, I was trying for a 10 syllable count. I struggle badly trying to maintain a consistent meter, so at times that's as close as I can manage. As much as anything, I'd just like an overall impression of whether or not it works as a poem overall and what things lines or words could be improved upon. Thanks for your help.

Logan, I apologize! I thought I had thanked you for taking the time to read over my poem and make suggestions! I think your meter is fine! I will re-read the poem for other general suggestions.

I think that the syllable count can be a weeee bit flexible in the sense that if in the rhythm there is a skip (I always think of hymns where every verse has a note, but one it is just silence there, but the silence works) or if there is an apparent extra syllable that is actually two syllables blended into one. Hard to explain, but sometimes if you tap your foot, they naturally go together into one.

Okay gotta run...

Thanks again!