Friends! This weekend in the Garden, let’s try a short form that’s less fussy and more adorable. It’s called the TRICUBE and the rules are super-simple: Each line contains three syllables, Each stanza contains three lines, and Each poem contains three stanzas.
That’s it! Except to say that the fun, mathematical tricube was created by Phillip Larrea.
Let’s try it. Three… two… one… Go!
Hello, dear friends! Let’s try a simple and elegant form this weekend that may allow us to focus on balance. I could use some more balance in my life, how about you? Our form today is the TETRACTYS.
Toads! Let’s have some fun today. Let’s write palindrome poems! LOL.
We all know that a palindrome is a word or phrase that is the same when read forward or backward. Like WOW or CIVIC or LOL or HANNAH. (Hi, Hannah!) Heaven (Grace) introduced the palindrome in the Garden a few years back, HERE. It’s the same idea, except that a palindrome poem can read forward and backward word by word or line by line. Here’s a quick example that I wrote for Grace’s challenge, called “Minor Key Riots”:
Wayward night, this feeling like ripe dahlias-- Rioting, escaping the laden shrill étude that is Life-- Is that étude shrill, laden, the escaping, rioting? Dahlias, ripe like feeling this night-- Wayward.
Since then, I’ve discovered the brilliant palindrome skills of smarty-pants comedian Demetri Martin, offered to you today for inspiration:
Dammit I'm mad. Evil is a deed as I live. God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt. To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss. Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help? Man, it is hot. I'm in it. I tell. I am not a devil. I level "Mad Dog". Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp, In my halo of a mired rum tin. I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin. Is evil in a clam? In a trap? No. It is open. On it I was stuck. Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web. Be still if I fill its ebb. Ew, a spider… eh? We sleep. Oh no! Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position. Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name. Both, one… my names are in it. Murder? I'm a fool. A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash, A Goddam level I lived at. On mail let it in. I'm it. Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet! A loss it is alas (sip). I'd assign it a name. Name not one bottle minus an ode by me: "Sir, I deliver. I'm a dog" Evil is a deed as I live. Dammit I'm mad.
Wikipedia says Martin wrote this poem about alcoholism for a fractal geometry class when he was an undergraduate at Yale. Showoff! :) And Martin wrote a 500-word palindrome poem published in his first book, This Is a Book. The poem is HERE.
Amazing!! Okay, Toads--have at it, palindromes! Like a snake head eating the head on the opposite side (according to They Might Be Giants).
I’m writing this prompt in the early morning as our town wakes up under a blanket of fresh snow. Soon I’ll be out driving in it, headed to work. Are we done with this yet? Let’s travel somewhere else for a spell.
For our weekend fussy form challenge, let’s head to the Phillippines and try the TANAGA.
With apologies and love to you-know-you, the tanaga is similar to haiku and tanka, being a compact quatrain with four seven-syllable lines. The tanaga can be written in various rhyme schemes, but traditionally all four lines rhyme, like aaaa bbbb cccc, and so on:
X X X X X X A X X X X X X A X X X X X X A X X X X X X A
Or you can try other rhyme variations, like aabb ccdd, or abba cddc.
A tanaga poem can stand on its own four lines, or the verses can be strung together for a longer poem. Usually titles are not used with tanaga poems.
The key to tanaga is that it is a witty poem, emotionally charged or heavy on metaphor, sometimes begging a question that demands an answer.
For a longer/better explanation, Pirate Grace O’Malley introduced the tanaga in the Garden some years ago, here: TULOY PO KAYO
For a quick example, here is one of my attempts from that time:
The golden arches beckon. Hungry travelers reckon, "Just once." No condemnation, I understand temptation.
Okay, let’s try it. Have fun with this clever form, and please feel free to link up one or many tries as your rhyming heart desires. Enjoy!
The National Flower of the Philippines: Sweet & Fragrant Sampaguita
Hello
Toads! For our little form challenge today, let’s try invoking the rule of
three in a form that allows for poems that are short or longer--the TERZA RIMA.
We’ve played with three in the Garden plenty of times--think triolet or
sevenling--but I don’t think we’ve tackled this form directly. It also follows
nicely from the chained rhyme we worked on last time, so let’s dig in.
The
terza rima has a long pedigree, having been created by Dante for The Divine
Comedy, but it is really quite simple in concept. Perhaps that is why it is so
long-lasting. It is a series of interlocking three-line stanzas in which the
end rhyme in the second line provides the rhyme for the first and third lines
of the next, like this: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C and so on, to your
heart’s content.
Another famous example of terza rima with which you may be familiar:
“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right I have been one acquainted with the night.
Usually
the terza rima is written in iambic pentameter, but this is not required. It is
suggested that the lines be the same length or syllable count, but again, not
imperative. There is no limit to the number of stanzas one might include in a
terza rima. One can write a terza rima sonnet as Robert Frost did above, like
this: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D, E-E
Academy of American Poets has a longer article at poets.org about terza rima that may be interesting or helpful: ARTICLE
As a sweet-special and totally inspiring added bonus, I found audio of dearest Adrienne Rich reading her poem titled “Terza Rima,” which flies far afield from the form and, of course, amazes: AUDIO
And here is a review of Arts of the Possible, Adrienne Rich's collection in which this poem appears: REVIEW
Hello, dear Friends and happy weekend to
you! It is time for a form challenge. Today we will revisit a form introduced
in the Garden by Joy a few years ago and enjoyed by many: CHAINED RHYME.
I don’t really think this form counts as
fussy or little. But let’s do it anyway. The basic premise is that the last
syllable or word of each line is followed by a rhyme on the first word or
syllable of the next line. LIKE A CHAIN, get it? Hah.
It’s not really fussy or little because the
poem can be anything you want--long lines or short, many lines or just a few,
strict meter or no meter, whatever you like. Just those rhymes and the end and
start of your lines.
Joy’s earlier prompt is so amazing that I
am being lazy (and not redundant!) by linking to her description here, check it
out:
