The challenge this month was to write in the form of the dansa. We took our cues about the form at Writer's Digest. I had trouble starting this one, so I did a little more digging into the form to see if there might be some other ways to approach it. I found the explanation at Poetry Magnum Opus to be particularly helpful because it showed related forms.
The dansa is a poem generally written in 3 stanzas with a refrain at the end of each stanza. The first stanza is a quintain, while the rest are quatrains. While there is no set meter, these poems as originally conceived were written in lines of 6 or 7 syllables. The rhyme scheme is AbbaA/bbaA/bbaA, where A is the refrain.
As you might guess from the name, the dansa was actually a poem set to music meant for joyful dancing. I found the joyful part hard to come by. Every poem I attempted turned to some heavy topic, even if it didn't start there. Nothing worked. I finally gave up on all the ideas I tried out when our group met on Zoom this week and decided to look for a line of poetry to use as my refrain. This actually yielded a lot of good ideas. Ultimately, I turned to Emily for inspiration and used a line from the poem Forever – is composed of Nows – (690).
Forever is Composed of Nows
Forever is composed of nows
Seize the day, be brave and try
Do some things that terrify
Sheer a sheep, milk some cows
Forever is composed of nows
Take a lesson, learn to fly
Join a contest eating pie
Climb a live oak’s beckoning boughs
Forever is composed of nows
Sing your child a lullaby
Find a church and testify
Dance on tables, raise eyebrows
Forever is composed of nows
Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2022. All rights reserved.
- Tanita Davis
- Mary Lee Hahn
- Sara Lewis Holmes
- Kelly Ramsdell
- Laura Purdie Salas
- Liz Garton Scanlon
- Andi Sibley
You're invited to our challenge in the month of November! Here's the scoop: we're creating recipe poems! Your choice of form, length, meter, or topic, but each poem will be an assemblage of elements, using recipe text/cooking instructions to create …something. From a recipe for disaster, to your favorite aperitif, you have a month to craft your creation and serve it forth on November 25th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We look forward to reading your poems!
I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jone Rush MacCulloch. Happy poetry Friday friends!