Poetry Workshop, February 2011: Glosa

[Lauren Hynde]

Everyone has been very quiet the last couple of days, I hope it's because you're busy doing your homework!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I'm quiet because you have me stumped I got as far as this

Travelled on down to Yasgur's farm
in the dawning of peace and love,
your time spring born girl

 

[butters]

please, miss, i've been working hard at work. today i hope to catch up a bit with my comments and voting, a have another poem wants itself written but i will be doing my homework. promise.

there's a saying 'trying to herd poets is like trying to herd cats...'



meow?

 

[Tzara]

I want to propose a little exercise. Take the first line of John Donne's "The Bait":
I would like each of you - I'll do it as well - to consider this line and, without quoting it, expand on it. Write a short poem, no more than between 6 and 10 lines, that tells a story or tells of a feeling that could be summarized in that one line. Use any form, meter, style or language you prefer. The idea isn't to gloss that line, but to get your brain in gloss mode, explain and expand, create new images out of it.

Once you're finished, for extra credit, put that poem aside and attempt the exact same exercise two or three times more, with different approaches to that one line, different stories, different images.

John Donne Struggles to Find a Mate

I know it's not a proper gig.
I'm rather messy, as you see.
These rooms! God! Don't look in the fridge!

It's not all, dear, about your cunt,
Although it is. Quite truthfully,
I need a maid who'll clean my junk

Slick all things clean of filth and dust;
I'll throw in board, and room, for free.
One bed's enough for both, I trust?

 

[Liar]

I want to propose a little exercise. Take the first line of John Donne's "The Bait":
I would like each of you - I'll do it as well - to consider this line and, without quoting it, expand on it. Write a short poem, no more than between 6 and 10 lines, that tells a story or tells of a feeling that could be summarized in that one line. Use any form, meter, style or language you prefer. The idea isn't to gloss that line, but to get your brain in gloss mode, explain and expand, create new images out of it.

Once you're finished, for extra credit, put that poem aside and attempt the exact same exercise two or three times more, with different approaches to that one line, different stories, different images.

And today for your Rick Roll moment,
a slice of cheese on fluffy clouds,
straight up, slightly sautéed
with a side of caramel. Watch how
sweet little sentiments cling right
to the thighs like sickly sediments
of rose colored lies. To have and
to hold, heart in hand, never gonna
give you up you away you pause you peace.
Replay, repeat, reroll, pretty please.

 

[butters]

saving Grace


he sang a sprawl of stars
to glitter in her desert
fooled jerichos the rains had come
counted grains of sand
named each a world
painted a vortex
on her sole
a bird upon her throat
with hope
she'd find her sea again

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

The Etchings

Let me see,
they're here somewhere.

Excuse the mess,
please, just find a spot.
and throw those books and papers off.

Won't be a sec.
and now you're here
won't you slip off your clothing, dear?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Some say that you and I my dear
should not feel love, that much is clear

but I have bought a darling ring
to wed you now would be the thing,

So let us start our life afloat
please climb into my pea green boat.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Some say that you and I my dear
should not feel love, that much is clear

but I have bought a darling ring
to wed you now would be the thing,

So let us start our life afloat
please climb into my pea green boat.

What about the honey and the plenty of money wrapped up in a 5 pound note?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

What about the honey and the plenty of money wrapped up in a 5 pound note?

he wants to get her on her own to haved his wicked way before promising her riches lol

 

[Lauren Hynde]

A new exercise will come this Saturday.

 

[CharleyH]

Everyone has been very quiet the last couple of days, I hope it's because you're busy doing your homework!

I'm quite quiet because you rock my world.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I'm quite quiet because you rock my world.

.....and you've been busy with your "homework", right? *eyebrow wiggle*


to you both

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I'm quite quiet because you rock my world.

.....and you've been busy with your "homework", right? *eyebrow wiggle*


to you both

she gets hers marked out of hours

 

[The_Fool]

I want to propose a little exercise. Take the first line of John Donne's "The Bait":
I would like each of you - I'll do it as well - to consider this line and, without quoting it, expand on it. Write a short poem, no more than between 6 and 10 lines, that tells a story or tells of a feeling that could be summarized in that one line. Use any form, meter, style or language you prefer. The idea isn't to gloss that line, but to get your brain in gloss mode, explain and expand, create new images out of it.

Once you're finished, for extra credit, put that poem aside and attempt the exact same exercise two or three times more, with different approaches to that one line, different stories, different images.

not sure how you will react
but hoping
offer a simple fob
with a single key
no words spoken
hope and love in my eyes

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The end of the month is quickly approaching, so I'm just going to skip on through to what I had imagined being a few good graduation exercises. You can do them all in succession, or just pick the one you feel most comfortable with. Post your finished poems in this thread, and I'll go over them and offer my thoughts.


1. Easy:

Select a two-line mote. I suggest that you find that two-line mote in the closing couplet of an English or Spenserian sonnet (or even in a modern sonnet if it has a classic closing couplet).

Write a glosa for that mote, in a single 10-line stanza. Incorporate the two lines of the mote into the glosa - the first one in the middle of the stanza (line 5) and the second one at the end (line 10). Try to make it as seamless as possible.​

2. Medium:

Select a quatrain as a mote. I suggest one that follows the pattern of a heroic stanza (iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB or AABB).

Write a four-stanza glosa, with each line of the mote being incorporated as the last line of each of the four stanzas. The stanzas of the glosa should maintain the meter and rhyme scheme of the mote. Again, try to make it as seamless and natural as possible.​

3. Hard:

Only if you really, really like a challenge, select your favourite sonnet. I want you to use the entire sonnet as a mote.

The glosa will be made of 7 stanzas. Each stanza, on its own, should constitute a sonnet that follows the same meter and rhyme scheme as the mote.

Lines 1 and 2 of the mote should be integrated in the first stanza/sonnet of the glosa as its final couplet. Lines 3 and 4 of the mote should be integrated in the second stanza/sonnet of the glosa as its final couplet. And so on. The final couplet of the mote should be the final couplet of the seventh and final stanza/sonnet of the glosa. Seamless. I dare you. ​

 

[UnderYourSpell]

 

[UnderYourSpell]

So wayward is the wind tonight
'Twill send the planets tumbling down;
And all the waving trees are light
In gauzes wafted from the moon.

The Wind Harold Munro
.......................................................

She moans in pine trees standing tall
and even roosting birds take flight
they tumble crying as they fall
so wayward is the wind tonight.

Dark clouds that whip across the sky
reveal the moon who seems to frown,
this storm that gathers up on high
'twill send the planets tumbling down.

The rain that rips the sky apart
slashes with even harder spite
to drench cold earth's deepest heart
and all the waving trees are light.

With branches weakened by the squall
the woodland floor too soon is strewn
coloured by leaves that turn and fall
in gauzes wafted from the moon.

 

[butters]

So wayward is the wind tonight
'Twill send the planets tumbling down;
And all the waving trees are light
In gauzes wafted from the moon.

The Wind Harold Munro
.......................................................

She moans in pine trees standing tall
and even roosting birds take flight
they tumble crying as they fall
so wayward is the wind tonight.

Dark clouds that whip across the sky
reveal the moon who seems to frown,
this storm that gathers up on high
'twill send the planets tumbling down.

The rain that rips the sky apart
slashes with even harder spite
to drench cold earth's deepest heart
and all the waving trees are light.

With branches weakened by the squall
the woodland floor too soon is strewn
coloured by leaves that turn and fall
in gauzes wafted from the moon.

wow! fast and furious, annie i've yet to find my mote
that line: they tumble crying as they fall - just gorgeous

 

[UnderYourSpell]

wow! fast and furious, annie i've yet to find my mote
that line: they tumble crying as they fall - just gorgeous

My sister once gave me a hefty tome of poems and I just flicked through it until I found something I could work with. I'm not happy with 'to drench cold earth's deepest heart' it's not right somewhere prolly too many syllables but I'm sure all will come right in the end with Lauren's disection!

 

[butters]

damnit, annie - this is your fault - i spent all day looking for a flaming 8 syllable per line mote, found something a bit (well) iffy but wrote around it. it came out more comedic than it should have. and then i re-read Lauren's no2 and it says pentameter, not tetrameter! lmao. now i have to go do it all again. but

not before showing what i came up with, dire as it is - it might amuse one or two, specially with one specific reference :

(the mote's borrowed from an example piece i found at
thepoetsgarret )

where you are from I do not know
the heavenly dust of passion grips
the white hot heat of Heaven's snow
to taste your essence on my lips

a stranger in a star-spun night
you blew in fast, you came on slow
no questioning of wrong or right
where you are from i do not know

the heat you radiate, it's lust
you burn my eyes, my fingertips
you are my want, my greed, my must
the heavenly dust of passion grips

to witness sunrise from your peaks
i scale the heights from valleys low
sunstroke i will embrace for weeks
the white hot heat of Heaven's snow

aflame for you, i'd risk it all
i'd risk contracting Captain Trips!
or leprosy! the shopping mall!
to taste your essence on my lips





ok, now i'm gonna go do what i was meant to do in the first place. grrrrr.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

damnit, annie - this is your fault - i spent all day looking for a flaming 8 syllable per line mote, found something a bit (well) iffy but wrote around it. it came out more comedic than it should have. and then i re-read Lauren's no2 and it says pentameter, not tetrameter! lmao. now i have to go do it all again. but

not before showing what i came up with, dire as it is - it might amuse one or two, specially with one specific reference :

(the mote's borrowed from an example piece i found at
thepoetsgarret )

where you are from I do not know
the heavenly dust of passion grips
the white hot heat of Heaven's snow
to taste your essence on my lips

a stranger in a star-spun night
you blew in fast, you came on slow
no questioning of wrong or right
where you are from i do not know

the heat you radiate, it's lust
you burn my eyes, my fingertips
you are my want, my greed, my must
the heavenly dust of passion grips

to witness sunrise from your peaks
i scale the heights from valleys low
sunstroke i will embrace for weeks
the white hot heat of Heaven's snow

aflame for you, i'd risk it all
i'd risk contracting Captain Trips!
or leprosy! the shopping mall!
to taste your essence on my lips





ok, now i'm gonna go do what i was meant to do in the first place. grrrrr.

my dear girl I wouldn't know a pentameter from a tetrameter even if it got up and bit me on the bum! but you get a bite on the bum from me for going all American on us with your pronunciation of 'mall'!!

 

[Tzara]

1. Easy:

Select a two-line mote. I suggest that you find that two-line mote in the closing couplet of an English or Spenserian sonnet (or even in a modern sonnet if it has a classic closing couplet).

Write a glosa for that mote, in a single 10-line stanza. Incorporate the two lines of the mote into the glosa - the first one in the middle of the stanza (line 5) and the second one at the end (line 10). Try to make it as seamless as possible.​

Love Such as Ours Endures Much in This Life

Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
—Edmund Spenser, "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand"

Love such as ours endures much in this life:
Joint economic woes, those brief affairs
So meaningless except to foment strife
Where strife lived not. We cleanse these sins with prayers
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Exemplary appear we to our heirs,
Like paragons of virtue. Man and wife
One single being, whose simple jointure dares
Declare all marriage sound. O, but as knife
Our love shall live, and later life renew.


.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Love Such as Ours Endures Much in This Life

Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
—Edmund Spenser, "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand"

Love such as ours endures much in this life:
Joint economic woes, those brief affairs
So meaningless except to foment strife
Where strife lived not. We cleanse these sins with prayers
Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue,
Exemplary appear we to our heirs,
Like paragons of virtue. Man and wife
One single being, whose simple jointure dares
Declare all marriage sound. O, but as knife
Our love shall live, and later life renew.


.

that's supposed to be easy?!!!!!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Parting in the dark shadow

And seizing the two words, with the sharp sun
Beat them, like sword and ploughshare, into one.
"For an Ex Far East Prisoner of War" Charles Causley

Parting in the dark shadow of despair
Fortune forcing apart our bonded lives
My eyes consume and memorize with care
Vociferate those names that cut like knives
And seizing the two words, with the sharp sun
I brand them in my heart where love survives
Postponed yet hopeful of our dashed affair.
If that defeated army yet revives
I’ll steal their weapons from their cryptic lair,
Beat them, like sword and ploughshare, into one.