Forgive me for being a bit late today. I normally write these posts on the weekend, but this one was filled with graduation activities. So, after a day of meetings, my 21st year at the university comes to a close and I finally have some time to call my own ... until summer school starts next week. Well, enough about me, let's get on with this week's stretch!
I am still reading and pondering the forms in Robin Skelton's The Shapes of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres from Around the World. Here is the poem Skelton wrote for this form and his explanation of the Chueh-chu.
a white light
carves shade:
the warm night,
dream tamed,
fears the dawn's
hard noise,
the sun's bright
trees green
not pearled gray,
walls grey
not bleached white,
mind trapped
as time's dream
feels time
and takes flight.
The name Chueh-chu means, literally, "sonnet cut short." ... It consists of eight lines with the rhyme scheme A A B A C A D A or the rhyme scheme A B C B D B E B. A further variation is A A B A A A C A.
This example is in the Wu-yen-shih metre, which consists of five monosyllable lines with a caesura after the second syllable. Each syllable is a complete word.
I hope you'll join me this week in writing a poem in the form Chueh-chu. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.
I swiped their first A rhyme. And I resisted the urge to do a whole train thing (choo-choo). Maybe next time!
ReplyDeleteTake Heart
Take heart,
dear. Take flight
in sun’s
yellow light.
Raise wings
strong and bright—
past dark
lifting white.
Be you,
fair and true.
Be brave,
sail the blue.
You’ll find
the wide view.
You’ll fly
till you’re new.
—Kate Coombs, 2015
all rights reserved
I am a little slow. Just now as I was again looking at the name of the poetry form, did I get your reference to choo-choo. :)
DeleteAnd I swiped their colors and their wall, and Kate's "oo" end rhyme. (Kate, why resist a choo-choo?) Lovely poem.
ReplyDeleteCrow Knows
Gray day:
murky pall
casts shade
upon all.
Sun's glare,
a white wall,
beats through
the dim sprawl.
No rain
falls anew,
no rest
from dull hue.
Black bird
with high view,
seems to know
what to do:
Bobs head,
looks around,
fluffs tail,
peers down
from high roof,
with no sound,
mocks me
on the ground.
© 2015 Stephanie Parsley Ledyard
Oh, this is really good! (And let's hear it for -oo words!)
Delete