Monday, January 21, 2008

Monday Poetry Stretch - Macaronic Verse

I reviewed the list of poetry stretches to date and am amazed by how much we've tackled. I want to try something else new to me this week, so I've selected macaronic verse. The Handbook of Poetic Forms defines macaronic verse in this fashion.
Macaronic verse is a peculiar, rare and often comic form of poetry that sometimes borders on nonsense. It is a mixture of two (or more) languages in a poem, in which the poet usually subjects one language to the grammatical laws of another to make people laugh.
You can read more at Wikipedia and learn a bit about the history of this form. You can also read something by an academic (c'mon, don't let that stop you). I was interested to note that the Carmina Burana is a fine example of this.

So, that's your challenge for this week, to write a poem that uses more than one language. If you don't know another language, make one up. Pig Latin, anyone? Leave me a comment about your macaronic verse and I'll post the results here later this week.

10 comments:

  1. Interesting challege. I told my readers about it at:

    http://poetswhoblog.blogspot.com/

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  2. Couldn't resist -- mixing of languages, humour bordering on nonsense, pasta. What? No pasta? No "macaroni" in "macaronic"? Well [grin] there is now. :^) Here's mine:
    http://fbayrock.blogspot.com/2008/01/macaronic-poetry-new-to-me.html

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  3. i just could not resist the challenge... i think i went into more detail than was called for ,, but i was intrigued by the process.....

    thanks for this stimulating prompt.....

    "sepia"

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  4. Okay. I tried this but I have no idea if I did it "right"...

    Sub Ubi

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  5. This one is a bit serious, but it was stuck in my head and has two languages. I think I'll try again after budget season lets go, but in the meantime, enjoy!

    http://havingwrit.blogspot.com/2008/01/oy-vey-tateh.html

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  6. This was fun! Here's mine: http://foundcraftygreenart.blogspot.com/2008/01/untranslateable.html

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  7. This was fun! Here's mine: http://foundcraftygreenart.blogspot.com/2008/01/untranslateable.html

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  8. I thought trying Macaronic verse would be fun to try. I had never heard of it before so I want to thank you for introducing me to something new and fun.

    Here is my Macaronic verse senryu.

    S

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  9. Hello Tricia,

    It is interesting that macaronic verse is generally defined as comic. Do you think multilingual poetry is necessarily of a humorous nature?

    Kind regards,

    Antoine Cassar.

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