Monday Poetry Stretch - Haiku Sonnet

Hello all! I'm back after a bit of a hiatus and hopefully am in the swing of things now that we are in week 2 of the fall semester.

The haiku sonnet is a form described by David Marshall, an English teacher and writer living in Chicago and blogging at Haiku Streak. Essentially, this form combines four haiku with a final two-line “couplet” consisting of seven and/or five syllable lines.

You can read some examples of David's work at Haiku Sonnet. While his poems don't rhyme (as haiku do not), I'm thinking I may attempt to include rhyme in my stretches.

So, there's your challenge. I hope you'll join me this week in writing a haiku sonnet or two. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Espinela

The Espinela is a Spanish poetic form composed of 10 lines, each written in eight syllables. It is named for the poet Vicentre Espinel who created the form. Here are the guidelines writing an espinela.

The first stanza is a quatrain with the rhyme scheme a b b a.
There is a break at the end of this stanza, so line 4 should be end stopped.
The next stanza is a sestet with the rhyme scheme a c c d d c.

So, there's your challenge. I hope you'll join me this week in writing an Espinela. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Poetry Seven Write Ekphrastic Poems

This month the poetry gang wrote poems to images selected by Sara. I was thrilled with her choice, having read about this particular exhibit in the New York Times way back in November. (See the article Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery Reopens With a New Focus.) Here are a couple of photos.

Artwork © Jennifer Angus, photographs © Sara Lewis Holmes 

You can find additional photos on Jennifer Angus' site. You can also read about the ethics of working with insects. And here's one more bit ...
After spending a lot of time looking at the artwork, I couldn't get Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, out of my mind. In fact, I was so stuck on it that I've included excerpts in this poem. So, with apologies to Jennifer Angus, because I do love her wall, here is my poem.


In The Midnight Garden

“I never saw a worse paper in my life.
One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.”

It’s a wonder
this pink wall
curious and unrestrained
with its friendly swarms
whirling rosettes
starry-eyed skulls

Listen closely
you may just hear
the low hum of
their wings
the hiss of
their breathing

Stare long enough
and they’ll take on
a life of their own
crawling towards you
and taking flight

“I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper.”

It’s not psychosis that
makes me love this wall
It’s getting nose to nose
with Earth’s most repugnant
and abundant creatures
awakening a new reverence
for nature’s least loved
in all their resplendence

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2016. All rights reserved.


You can read the poems written by my Poetry Seven compatriots at the links below. Laura's in the midst of a big move to a new home and busy, busy, busy, so she's cheering us on today.

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Liz Garton Scanlon
• Andi Sibley

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Tara at A Teaching Life. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Octava Real

We've written in the form Ottava Rima a number of times. It is an Italian form that consists of any number of eight line stanzas with the rhyme scheme abababcc. In English, the lines are usually written in iambic pentameter. Ottava rima is generally associated with epic poems (like Don Juan), but can be used for shorter poems.

The Octava Real is the Spanish version of this form. It is also stanzaic and written in any number of octaves. Instead of iambic pentameter, this form is hendecasyllabic, or written in lines of 11 syllables. It carries the same rhyme scheme (abababcc). Like it's counterpart, it is also a narrative form, generally used for telling a story.

So, there's your challenge. I hope you'll join me this week in writing an Octava Real. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Ovillejo

The ovillejo is a Spanish poetic form made popular by Miguel de Cervantes. It is a 10-line poem composed of 3 rhyming couplets and a final quatrain written in the form of a redondilla. In addition to rhyming, this form is also syllabic.

The first line of each couplet is 8 syllables long, while the second line is 3-4 syllables. The lines of the redondilla are 8 syllables each, with the final line composed of a repetition of lines 2, 4, and 6.

Here's what the poem looks like.

1 - x x x x x x x a
2 - x x x a

3 - x x x x x x x b
4 - x x x b

5 - x x x x x x x c
6 - x x x c

7 - x x x x x x x c
8 - x x x x x x x d
9 - x x x x x x x d
10 - line 2, line 4, line 6

You can read more about the ovillejo at Poetry Forms. You can read about the redondilla at Poetry Magnum Opus.

So, there's your challenge. I hope you'll join me this week in writing an ovillejo. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Golden Shovel

I know, it's Tuesday again. I'll just chalk my lateness up to my summer schedule.

I've been thinking a bit about this excerpt I read in this interview with Max Ritvo.

"I’ve never really understood the point of poetry, if not to expose you to different forms of mentation. You can write about whatever you want to write about, it’s your prerogative as a poet, but at the end of the day, what a poet does is let you inhabit a different way of thinking for a brief moment of time. For a very very brief bit of time, logic tacks together in ways it never has, and you’re able to have a series of free associations that’ve never been in your brain, or hopefully in any brain, before. I think that this endures so much more than the message of any poem."

I like thinking about poetry as a different way of thinking, though I've always thought of it as a different way of seeing. I write (usually) with a scientist's eyes, practicing the art of looking closely. I also write with the heart of a mathematician, because I love to puzzle through form and structure.

This week let's puzzle through the form Golden Shovel. This form was invented by Terrance Hayes. In writing a golden shovel, you must first borrow a favorite line or lines from a poem to create your own. The words in this line become the end words of your poem. If you choose a six word line, your poem with have 6 lines. If you choose a 12 word line, your poem will have 12 lines. You get the idea. Remember to credit the original poem/poet in the title or an epigram.

Here's an excerpt from Hayes' poem.

The Golden Shovel
by Terrance Hayes

     after Gwendolyn Brooks

I. 1981

When I am so small Da’s sock covers my arm, we
cruise at twilight until we find the place the real

men lean, bloodshot and translucent with cool.
His smile is a gold-plated incantation as we

drift by women on bar stools, with nothing left
in them but approachlessness. This is a school

     Read the poem in its entirety.


Hopefully you can see Brooks' poem (We Real Cool) in the end words of each line.

So, there's your challenge. I hope you'll join me this week in writing a golden shovel. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Englyn cyrch

If orange is the new black, then Tuesday is the new Monday! My apologies for failing to post yesterday. I got caught up in the end of summer school and grading.

The Englyn cyrch is a Welsh poetic form consisting of any number of quatrains. In each stanza, the lines are composed of seven syllables, with lines 1, 2, and 4 sharing an end rhyme. The end rhyme of line 3 rhymes with a middle syllable (3rd, 4th, or 5th) or line 4. Here's what the pattern looks like.

x x x x x x a
x x x x x x a
x x x x x x b
x x x b x x a

You can read more about Englyn at Wikipedia.

That's it. Easy-peasy, right? I hope you'll join me this week in writing an Englyn cyrch. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Diatelle

I've been searching a bit online for some "new" and different poetry forms. I discovered a site, The Writer's & Poetry Alliance Club, that not only explains traditional poetic forms, but includes numerous invented forms as well.

The diatelle is syllabic form with a rhyme scheme. It looks a bit like a double etheree, but it is different. Here are the guidelines.
syllable pattern: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 10 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1
rhyme scheme: a b b c b c c a c c b c b b a

That's it. Easy-peasy, right? I hope you'll join me this week in writing a diatelle. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Seven Write "In the Style Of" ... Kay Ryan

Sigh ... I really procrastinated this month and now I'm not so happy with my poem. I guess that's alright. My energy has been focused on summer school, so writing has been coming in fits and starts.

The poem I chose to write in the style of, as did a few of my poetry sisters, is entitled Turtle.

Turtle
by Kay Ryan

Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
she can ill afford the chances she must take
in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.

Read and listen to the poem in its entirety.


I had a hard time settling on a subject. I started a poem on the heron, inspired by a morning walk and watching our local heron wade through the mud near some sunning turtles. It didn't go very far. I also tried mongoose, cockroach, and bat. I suppose this was hard for me because I'm fascinated by these animals and don't see too many drawbacks to their design. I finally settled on the naked mole rat. The poem is entirely too didactic, but I enjoyed working on the internal rhyme in the piece. In fact, I ran it through The Wall Street Journal analyzer. (Props to Laura Purdie Salas for sharing this!) Their algorithm breaks words into component sounds and then groups similar-sounding syllables into rhyme families, which are color-coded. You can learn how they did it at How WSJ Used an Algorithm to Analyze ‘Hamilton’ the Musical. Here's what a portion of my poem looks like.

So, without further ado, here's my first draft, along with a picture of the animal that inspired it. I'm not sure I'll be revisiting this exact one, but I like Ryan's poem as a mentor text and will definitely try to tackle another subject.

Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

Posted to Flickr by Jedimentat44.

Naked Mole Rat

Who would be a naked mole rat who could help it?
A wrinkled mess with random whiskers
and excess hair between her toes, she does not know
that beauty escapes her. She’s a prime
example that form follows function. Living
a lifetime underground, it’s no wonder
she is built for digging, skilled in
wielding her prominent teeth and snout
to excavate her route. Fate determined
by birth, she labors for her queen.
Keeping chambers clean, finding food,
minding pups, life is busy enough.
Neither mole nor rat, she’s tough
to define, closer relation to the porcupine.
Despite the strangeness she’s
undeterred, unaware of how absurd
her subterranean life is.

Poem ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2016. All rights reserved.


You can read the poems written by my Poetry Seven compatriots at the links below. Andi's not sharing a poem today, but she's always with us in spirit.

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon
• Andi Sibley

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Climbing Rhyme

Climbing Rhyme is a form of Burmese poetry containing a repeated sequence of 3 internally-rhymed lines consisting of 4 syllables each. Since Burmese is monosyllabic, this works well, but in English this might be difficult. Instead of 4 syllable lines, let's try writing in lines of 4 words. (If you're feeling brave, go ahead and try four syllables!)

The rhyme scheme for climbing rhyme is internal. That means the position of the rhyming word changes. The rhyme appears in the 4th word of line one, 3rd word of line 2, and 2nd word of line 3. The pattern continues as a new rhyme appears in the 4th word of line 3, the 3rd word of line 4, and the 2nd word of line 5. This continues on, giving a stair-step feel to the poem, hence the name climbing rhyme.

For those of you who need to see this visually, here it is. Each x stands for a word. The letters stand for rhyming words. Just remember the 4-3-2 pattern.

x x x a
x x a x
x a x b
x x b x
x b x c
x x c x
x c x x

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a climbing rhyme. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Septercet

Today's form comes from the mind of Jane Yolen. A septercet is her newly invented form, a modified tercet. An actual tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem, though this one also has a line syllabic count of seven.

Here's an example.

Human Work

“The wild can be human work.”—Helen Macdonald

The wild can be human work
If we reset the balance,
Keeping our thumbs off the scales.

If we bring back, return things,
Not just take it all away,
The wild can be human work.

Restoration is hard graft,
Almost more than creation,
Which is why God needed rest.

But we humans dare not rest
Till we’re done with restoring:
Eagles in their high aeries,

Whales singing in their sea lanes.
Wolves commandeering forests.
All the wild come home again.

©2016 Jane Yolen. All rights reserved.


Cool, isn't it? I love syllable counting, so this should be fun. I hope you'll join me in writing a septercet. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

And thanks to Jane for sending this and allowing me to share it with you!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Sonnet (Italian Form)

In my estimation, there is never a bad time for a sonnet. Here's a great example.

Since I normally write Shakespearian sonnets, I thought I'd offer up the Italian form this week. Here are the basic guidelines to follow.

• A sonnet is composed of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter.
• The Italian sonnet is divided into an octave (8 lines), followed by a sestet (6 lines).
• The rhyme pattern for the octave is a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a. For the sestet the pattern can be c-d-e-c-d-e or c-d-c-c-d-c.

You can read more on sonnets in this great post by Kelly Fineman.

So, there's your challenge for the week. I hope you'll join me in writing a sonnet. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Friday - Summer

Today I'm sharing a poem by Amy Lowell.

Summer
by Amy Lowell

Some men there are who find in nature all
Their inspiration, hers the sympathy
Which spurs them on to any great endeavor,
To them the fields and woods are closest friends,
And they hold dear communion with the hills;
The voice of waters soothes them with its fall,
And the great winds bring healing in their sound.
To them a city is a prison house
Where pent up human forces labour and strive,
Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man;
But where in winter they must live until
Summer gives back the spaces of the hills.
To me it is not so. I love the earth
And all the gifts of her so lavish hand:
Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds,
Thick branches swaying in a winter storm,
And moonlight playing in a boat’s wide wake;
But more than these, and much, ah, how much more,
I love the very human heart of man.
Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,
Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake
Lazily reflecting back the sun,
And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze
Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.
The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops
The green crest of the hill on which I sit;
And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature’s changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
For life alone is creator of life,
And closest contact with the human world
Is like a lantern shining in the night
To light me to a knowledge of myself.
I love the vivid life of winter months
In constant intercourse with human minds,
When every new experience is gain
And on all sides we feel the great world’s heart;
The pulse and throb of life which makes us men!


I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Carol of Beyond Literacy Link. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Luc Bat

The Luc Bat is a Vietnamese form with a repeating rhyme scheme and lines of six and eight syllables. The rhyme scheme looks like this.

xxxxxA
xxxxxAxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxBxC
xxxxxC
xxxxxCxD

This form uses a climbing rhyme of sorts. There is no length requirement, only a need for the final syllable of the last line to link back to the initial rhyme (A).

You can read more about this form at The Poets Garret.

I wrote a luc bat for my ekphrastic poem last week. I didn't learn of the rule about linking back to the initial rhyme until I did some additional research on the form, so my first attempt wasn't exactly on point. Here I'm sharing the first and latest drafts.

Luc Bat First Draft
She’s no catch, this winged thing.
The roar of her voice sings, not sweet
but raw, a clawing beat.
Cover your ears, retreat … no run
before your end’s begun
before you are undone by scales,
beating wings, mournful wails,
those claws as sharp as nails. Beware!
Once fixed in her cold stare,
you will not have a prayer save one.
Remember that she’s done
in stone, of marble spun, a dream
locked in a silent scream.

Latest Revision
No prize this beast with wings,
the roar of her voice sings, not sweet
but raw, a clawing beat.
Cover your ears, retreat … no run
before your end’s begun
before you are undone by scales,
beating wings, mournful wails,
those claws as sharp as nails. Beware!
Once fixed in her cold stare,
you will not have a prayer save one.
Recall she's marble spun,
this myth that made men run, now stone
and beauty, fearsome thing.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2016. All rights reserved.

So, there's your challenge for the week. I hope you'll join me in writing a luc bat. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Poetry Seven and Mary Pownall's Harpy

This month the poetry gang wrote poems to photos taken by Tanita of Mary Pownall's sculpture The Harpy Calaeno.

Artwork: The Harpy Calaeno, 1902, by Mary Pownall, Kelvingrove Art Gallery

Photograph by Stephencdickson, Wikimedia Commons

I wrote this first poem after learning that a dear friend was diagnosed with cancer. The news was not good, and after multiple opinions, the consensus is that there are no treatment options. So, the poem doesn't say much about cancer that hasn't already been said, but writing it sure made me feel a tiny bit better.

The word drops …
cancer
there is no steeling yourself
against it
the tumor
an oozing black tar
staining your insides
a writhing knot of snakes
expanding ever outward

Cancer, you bitch
you harpy
clawing your way
through a mortal temple
slowly stealing life
but not soul

In this case
inoperable
untreatable

Despite the news
spirit indomitable


For my second poem I wanted to actually write about the sculpture. Inspired by the poems written by my sisters in the form of pantoum and villanelle, I chose a form as well. In gearing up for next week's poetry stretch I decided to experiment with the Luc Bat, a Vietnamese form with a repeating rhyme scheme and lines of six and eight syllables.

No prize this beast with wings,
the roar of her voice sings, not sweet
but raw, a clawing beat.
Cover your ears, retreat … no run
before your end’s begun
before you are undone by scales,
beating wings, mournful wails,
those claws as sharp as nails. Beware!
Once fixed in her cold stare,
you will not have a prayer save one.
Recall she's marble spun,
this myth that made men run, now stone
and beauty, fearsome thing.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2016. All rights reserved.


You can read the poems written by my Poetry Seven compatriots at the links below. Andi's not sharing a poem today, but she's always with us in spirit.

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Jone of Check It Out. Happy poetry Friday friends!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Triversen

The triversen ("triple verse sentence") is a verse form invented by William Carlos Williams. Each stanza is composed of a single sentence, broken into three parts, which together form a stanza. The poems are generally unrhymed and often contain alliteration. They can be composed of any number of tercets.

You can learn more about the triversen and read some examples at Poetics and Ruminations.

So, there's your challenge for the week. I hope you'll join me in writing a triversen. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Wayra

The Wayra is a Latin American verse from popular in Peru and Bolivia. It is a short syllabic verse that follows these guidelines:

• a pentastich (5 line poem)
• unrhymed
• syllable count = 5/7/7/6/8

So, there's your challenge for the week. I hope you'll join me in writing a wayra. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Akshar-Mala

Akshar-Mala is an Indian poetic form in which the initial letters of each line are in alphabetical order. There are no other requirements for the form.

I found this form in The Dictionary of Indian Literature, One, Beginnnings-1850. I haven't been able to find any other descriptions of it, or any another Indian form that resembles it closely.

A while back we wrote in the form of iroha mojigusari, where the first letter of the alphabet starts off the first line and the second letter of the alphabet concludes it. The third letter starts the second line and the fourth letter finishes it. This continues until all the letters of the alphabet have been used in order.

Since there are no other guidelines here than order, I don't see why you can't begin with any letter of your choosing and make the poem as long as you like.

So, there's your challenge for the week. I hope you'll join me in writing an akshar-mala. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

Book Review - California, the Magic Island

California, the Magic Island, written and illustrated by Doug Hansen, is a book that every California teacher should have on his/her bookshelf. But what is it? Is it mythology? State history? Alphabet book? Actually, it's all of the above.

Here's the overview from the back cover.

Queen Calafia, the legendary heroine of a sixteenth-century Spanish romance about an island overflowing with gold, is incensed with she hears that a state has been named after her. Being the good queen that she is, she's willing to hear from twenty-six animals about why California is worthy of her regal name. Each animal describes an iconic cultural object or historical event, enchanting readers—and maybe even Calafia herself—with their tales of the magical place called California.

Hailing from western New York, I have visited the state on a number of occasions, but know very little about California history, so this was a very nice introduction.

The book opens with an introduction to Queen Calafia and Her Magic Island. As all good stories begin, this one starts with "Once upon a time (or maybe only yesterday) ..." Readers learn about the Queen and her island, her fury at the use of their island name, and her command to her warriors to let the animals speak for California as she decides the fate of the people. What follows are 26 stories, each told by a different animal, each about a different event, location, industry, animal, or some other important piece related to California history or present. After their stories, readers learn about the judgment that Queen Calafia has made.

Back matter in the text contains information about the origin of the Queen Califia legend, additional information about each of the animals and the stories they narrate, and a note about the artist and the content of the borders at the beginning of the book. The illustrations are brightly colored, gloriously vibrant images that are nothing short of magical. I spent almost as much time pouring over the illustrations as I did reading the text.

I loved the story of the monarch butterflies, and will use excerpts from this in my science teaching. Other connections to science include stories about the La Brea Tar Pits, Mount Palomar Observatory, and Yosemite.

Hansen looks broadly and inclusively at California history. The stories are short, providing just information to pique the interest of readers. I know that I closed the book wanting to know so much more. This is a beautiful book with a story inventively told.

Poetry Seven Write Tritinas

This month the Poetry Seven crew wrote in the form of the tritina. The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line (envoi) that stands alone. Similar to a sestina, though shorter, it uses a set of 3 alternating end words instead of six. The form is: ABC / CAB / BCA / A, B, and C (final line/envoi).

The words we chose from were selected by Tanita. They were:
sweet, cold, stone, hope, mouth, thread

I think repeating words are hard, so this took some thought. However, it was the final line using all three words at once that proved to be the real challenge. I wrote two poems for this form. The first is a bit melancholy, but that always happens to me at this time of the year. My father’s birthday was yesterday (the 5th). He would have been 90 this year. And tomorrow (the 7th) is the 7th anniversary of his death, so he’s been much on my mind as of late. Therefore, the first poem is for/about him. The second is much lighter.

Without further ado, my tritinas.

Tritina #1 

My father pulled the hook from the mouth
of the bass. I touched its cold
scales, the thrill of catching it sweet.

Memories of my father are sweet,
though sometimes I imagine him, mouth
agape, my mother at his side touching his cold

hands. At the end, the world went cold.
There was nothing sweet
in death. My heart and mouth

slammed shut. Now I fish alone--no dad, no largemouth--just cold, sweet stillness.


Tritina #2

Speed Dating Introduction ... A 30-Second Tritina

I relish the smoothness of a stone
worn by water, the sweet
smell of freshly mown grass, the cold

slide of ice cream down my throat. I long for winter cold,
summer sun, the skipping of a stone
across the lake, that first buttery taste of sweet

corn. I believe in the sweet
hereafter, going cold
turkey, that some things are set in stone.

I’m stone cold sober, so lay some sweet lines on me.

Poems ©Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2016. All rights reserved.

You can read the poems written by my Poetry Seven compatriots at the links below.

• Tanita Davis
• Kelly Fineman
• Sara Lewis Holmes
• Laura Purdie Salas
• Liz Garton Scanlon
• Andi Sibley

I do hope you'll take some time to check out all the wonderful poetic things being shared and collected today by Sylvia Vardell at Poetry for Children. Happy poetry Friday friends!