This month's challenge was to write a metaphor poem using metaphor dice.
This year we are meeting once a month on Zoom to write together. It's a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. This time around, Laura rolled metaphor dice for each of us. For me she rolled "the mind is a silent sideshow."
Before we met I decided I wanted to write a triolet. I like the form and find the repetition challenging. Once I had my metaphor, I generated rhyming words for show and then wrote the last two lines of the triolet. (I always begin at the end because I feel it makes the poem more cohesive.) Once I had the A line, I generated rhyming words for head. I usually begin with words off the top of my head, then I do a quick search at RhymeZone. When we were discussing process at the end of the session, Kelly shared the site Rhymer, which was new to me. It generated a really nice list of words, so I'll be trying it our for sure.
A triolet is an 8-line poem that uses only two rhymes used throughout. Additionally, the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines, while the second line is repeated in the final line. Because of this, only five different poetic lines are written. The rhyme scheme for a triolet is ABaAabAB (where capital letters stand for repeated lines). Here's my triolet.
Hearing Voices
Voices inside your head
are a personal, silent sideshow
fill you with wonder and dread
the voices inside your head
demand to be coddled and fed
poke holes in the truth that you know
Damn voices inside your head
the mind is a silent sideshow
After I wrote this I tried a free verse poem, but it didn't really go anywhere. I couldn't get away from the idea of the unquiet mind and was reminded of a meme a friend shared on Twitter from the webcomic Are You Going to Sleep?
Sideshow Mind
dark grows
brain knows
no lows
sideshow overthrows
sleep
internal chatter
thoughts scatter
subject matter?
stomach flatter
paint splatter
cake batter
mad hatter
wake up!
Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2021. All rights reserved.
The thing I figured out fastest with this challenge is that the prompt pretty much chooses the form. A triolet wouldn't have worked nearly as well for me! I do like the couplets, too - the "subject matter" of the second part cracked me up.
ReplyDeleteThe repetition of the "voices" really works for a triolet. And the subtle change to the third repetition...yes!
ReplyDeleteWhat fun! I really like the triolet, but that rhyming couplets one sounds like YOU, somehow. Love it!
ReplyDeleteFor all the negatives of Zoom, there are so many positives. I love that you are writing together monthly. I enjoyed both of your poems, but especially enjoyed the second one and that ending line "Wake up!"
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed both poems. The rhymes in the couplets are fun. I have been there.
ReplyDeleteOh, Those damn voices that "poke holes in the truth that you know."
ReplyDeleteThe triolet is PERFECT for the voices inside one's head that just go around and around and around in twisty and obsessive ways. Wow, I am so impressed. (I really liked the second one, too, but it was the triolet that did me in...)
ReplyDeleteI love your triolet--that repetition so mirrors those thoughts circling round and round. THe couplets are fun, too.
ReplyDeleteKay summed up just what I was going to say — the repetition and rhyme of the triolet works perfectly with the way those thoughts and voices spiral in our heads. And, oh, that Sideshow Mind ... I can relate! :) Love both of these.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your process, Tricia, all the ideas & both poems about that chatter inside. It seems you've got it right with that final line, "the mind is a silent sideshow". Now, we need a 'director' with some power!
ReplyDeleteI've loved reading these metaphor dice poems this week!
ReplyDelete