this is Poetry ...
What is your definition of poetry? Please contact me if you'd like to share your thoughts.
The following poems are a sampling of my attempts at some fun exercises... I've included the rules to the forms in case you'd like to try writing some of your own. Enjoy : )
Leslie Bevans
POETRY FORMS
trinet
malleable
at first
the cat
a feline riveted to dry land
would never think of getting wet
crossed bridge
saw fish
jumped in
• First line: 2 words
• Second line: 2 words
• Third line: 6 words,
• Fourth line: 6 words,
• Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh lines: 2 words
Cinquain
Lesson Plan
Sharing
will end hunger
only for a moment.
But teach gardening and there will be
plenty!
• 2 syllables in the first line
• 4 in the second line
• 6 in the third line
• 8 in the fourth
• 2 in the fifth.
• (Poet may add or subtract one syllable from each line).
Minute Poem
Summer Minute
In summertime a poet born
no trumpet horn,
though angels sang,
carillon rang,
and every flower thanked the sun
‘til day was done,
in late July,
under blue sky…
Today the poet works the land
with heart and hands.
When day is done,
she thanks the sun.
• 3 quatrains
• 8 syllables in the first line of each stanza
• 4 syllables in the remaining lines of each stanza rhyme scheme: aabb/ccdd/eeff
• written in strict iambic meter
Monotetra
Ongoing
The fool’s journey hasn’t ended
water, fire, earth, air blended
his feet are cold, socks unmended,
undescended, undescended
his voice is soft, his steps are small
he tries to climb the tower tall
he’s upside down, then hits a wall,
the world still calls, the world still calls.
• quatrains in tetrameter for a total of 8 syllables per line
• each quatrain made up of mono-rhymed lines
• the final line of each stanza repeats the same 4 syllables
• poet chooses length of poem (1 quatrain to infinity)
WORD CAN Poems
A Tradition of Taylor Graham's Tuesday at 2:00 Poetry Gathering in El Dorado County, California - each participant chooses one little strip of paper from a can full of hundreds of strips. Upon each strip is one word or phrase (taken from assorted poems). All participants will have about 12 minutes to write a poem that (at the very least) contains all of the words drawn from the can. If there are 6 participants, all 6 will use all 6 words drawn. (I've included the word can words in italics below poems). Then each poem is read aloud and , yes, everyone's poem is different!
Bliss
when trudging in from red-cheek wind,
autumn end brings heaps of leaves and acorn lids,
eyes squint, tired again,
mittens wet and stiff with muddy rot, wrung out to dry on hook
untie boots and feet escape wet socks
pink in firelight, icy toes kiss hearthrug warm
you sing while stirring barley beans and tubers
and honey butter rests soft upon my cornbread.
eye, cornbread, light, acorn, wrung out
some after-words
Fire chief slammed a dusty tailgate
Under tread, the stinking land
brown and black, a corpse unwrapped,
a pillaged mummy, silenced dead
the living left to grieve
The scene, an absence of green
Our tears blur out what’s left to see
but loyal to this station still,
and love for soil, fit or spoiled,
our hope shines radiant
A lightning strike, a gentle rain,
destroy and heal, nature’s game
no one keeps score … as life goes on
one thing for sure, there will be change
and no time to complain.
tailgate, station, mummy, game, radiant, tread
Three chimes later...
and as if attempting to escape by mouth, the words
endeavored to climb free but
banned to air upon
acceleration of inward breath, not a word
but nasal twang was heard
and sudden to sink, her body fell
toward ground as she became a toad
and the potion bottle rolled away.
banned, twang, accelerate, potion
under, standing
Again, I waited under oak,
a centerpiece upon the slanted field,
my sheep milled about like seashells scattered on the sand,
my hound ran fence from farm to top of hill
and wove between the lazy grazing sheep
ever-productive in his quest to herd,
I rested, knowing all were safe.
Under this tree, so old its age unknown,
bark, silvered gray, and checked with moss.
Its voice so faint I held my breath to hear
on breeze its song, an audible mirage.
I closed my eyes and relished every word,
it sang about the sky, the moon and time
not in a way that I had ever known,
it sang about the space that lives between our lives
and places traveled, remaining, still unseen.
places traveled, silver, mirage, farm, productive, seashell, check, centerpiece