Form Poem Contest

The original of this terrible parody can be found here.

Thought of my father's loan of old,
Paid off by working on the line;
Whatever made and later sold,
Was cash for this small palm of mine...

Lord Gold-man-sachs, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

The tumult and the shootings rise,
The capital gains just fall apart;
Still stands that ugly edifice
The venerable bastion of Wal-mart.

Lord Gold-man-sachs, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

Frak! All our navvies melt away!
Now Ford joins both GM and Chrysler.
Lo, all the oil pumped yesterday
Is like the air within their tires.

O House and Senate, spare us cash!
We're in a hole and all is ash!

If, drunk with lighter purse, we loose
Wild thoughts of economic law—
Such boasting as the pundits use
And Adam Smith's unseemly paw—

O Treasury, O mighty Fed
Still give us gold and cloth and bread!

For greedy hearts that think it just
To spread the pain and make it hard,
And pay the CEOs (we must!)
And see no 'For Sale' in the yard—

For Fanny Maes and Freddie Macs,
Thy mercy on us, Gold-man-Sachs!

Thank you Autolycus for posting your parody and for the link to the original lyrics. (As the only Kipling song whose tune I know is "The Road to Mandalay," I'll see if I can find the tune that accompanies "Recessional" somewhere on the Net.)

Additional entries will be accepted for the remainder of today, and
the "lucky" winner will be announced sometime this weekend.

Happy New Year and thanks to all who contributed it to
this leg of the Form Poetry Contest.

As Fred Allen once said, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that's true, but a good parody can be an occasion for some original wit, which I found in these entries.

Alakungfu, your parody of the Carpenters' song gave an ironic twist to the self-image of your subject, who saw himself in a class by himself--"Nonpareil."

Firefangled and Autolycus, you both know me so well -- in that I'm a sucker for topical humor, namely the current economic woes.

Autolycus played with the title, "Recessional" to apply it to "the " Recession -- great pun.

Firefangled also picked a seasonal song, and her lyrics seem to match up with the original tune by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin in Meet Me in St. Louis. For the most part, Firefangled's new lyrics could be "sung" to the original tune.

All of the contestants have joined the ranks of Allen Sherman, Mark Russell, and Weird Al Yankovich, parodists of the past and present. Pendragon's parody of Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" is not only singable but positively infectious. How about the clever substitutions: "May-o" for "Day-oh," and "Delight come" for "Daylight come."? And I love that he mentioned specifics, actual foods that the reader can smell or even taste. "His parody matches the original song, syllable by syllable. The new lyrics are true to life -- and downright funny!

So the winner of this round of the Form Poetry Contest is the founder of the feast, so to speak -- Pendragon.

Pen, will you choose the next form please!

Thank you, Auntie. I got to think about this, what springs to mind might not draw too many contestants, and I want to reach a lot, hopefully... :)

I'm going to assign a sestina, which may be a harder form, but I want you to think about it. I won;t make it due until Feb. 14th to give plenty of time: Here are your instructions and one of my own for a sample. Play with the form to your hearts desire and read a few famous ones before you write. Good writing to all!

The sestina is a complex form that achieves its often spectacular effects through intricate repetition. The thirty-nine-line form is attributed to Arnaut Daniel, the Provencal troubadour of the twelfth century. The name "troubadour" likely comes from trobar, which means "to invent or compose verse." The troubadours sang their verses accompanied by music and were quite competitive, each trying to top the next in wit, as well as complexity and difficulty of style.

Courtly love often was the theme of the troubadours, and this emphasis continued as the sestina migrated to Italy, where Dante and Petrarch practiced the form with great reverence for Daniel, who, as Petrarch said, was "the first among all others, great master of love."

The sestina follows a strict pattern of the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though in its initial incarnation, the sestina followed a syllabic restriction. The form is as follows, where each numeral indicates the stanza position and the letters represent end-words:

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE

The envoi, sometimes known as the tornada, must also include the remaining three end-words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. The words usually occur at the middle and end of the lines. In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of rhyme.

COLORS

Red is the color of the bubbling blood
that flows in scarlet streams from the slashed skin
of my right forearm. Watching it, I laugh.
It gives me a wonderful sense of release
from the pressures of a weary, tormented mind.
Sylvia Plath would recognized the feeling…

Blue is the color of my mood; the color of my feelings—
feelings too often painted in letters of blood;
the scattered ravings of an oppressed mind
encapsulated in a thin veneer of skin;
a caged animal seeking blessed release.
The imagery alone is enough to make one laugh.

Raven-black is the color of the hopeless laugh;
humor that never reaches the eyes, nor expresses the feelings
of the soul; just a pressure-valve, a release
to prevent total madness. The thin trickle of blood
is never a life-threat; the blade barely breaks the skin.
Any therapeutic aid exists solely in the mind.

Grey, it is said, is the color of the mind;
a twisted mess that resembles worms! What a laugh!
We lavish so much time and attention on our skin
and bones to feed worms! Isn’t THAT a creepy feeling!
One red worm crawls down my arm, a worm of blood,
while the worms that will devour my flesh seek release!

Yellow is the color of Light, of release;
the point of enlightenment that takes place in the mind.
The light engulfs my body, my bones, my blood.
Now, there is genuine mirth in the laugh,
an uplifting of the spirit and the feelings.
Energy pulsates all through this prison of skin.

Pale-white is the color of the skin
in which I live. The spirit struggles for release;
an emotional storm explodes in my feelings,
and a tiny voice (my own) whispers in my mind
things that I find so ridiculous that I laugh.
With a small cloth, I easily stop the flow of blood.

Having stopped the blood, I know a new scar will form on my skin.
But I don’t mind. I never have. I laugh.
If you have never experienced the feelings, you wouldn’t understand the release.

Dale Harris

Congratulations, Pen! And thanks for the prompt challenge for Valentine's Day too!

Congratulations Pendragon. Here's my entry.






Bluff House


Identify the stars that both
The restive and the wretched follow
Brought to life in a dewy arena
Known to man as dreamland
In resolution of the feminine
The bane of torture of the man.

Stubborn beings do what they can
Break their faith to pledge their troth
Throw their lots with the sanguine
Pose in their fields, adepts at solo,
Clutching vacuous freedoms in hand.
Inspired of either, a ballerina

Who basks in attentions in the arena,
Distributes pleasures for a man
Biding his revelatory rift, on land
Satisfying poles, countered, both.
Then halt the esoteric that follow
To arrive somewhere in the feminine.

No concept of the richly sanguine
Inasmuch as rivets the ballerina
Leaving stars awash to embark solo;
Insight to such dried Experience as can
Be imminent as destroyer of the troth.
Youth joins in with outstretched hand

To apportion the forming land:
To bind the material with the feminine,
And so the sea pulses, and the sky both
Jumbling in the same arena,
In the footsteps of retiring man,
Redolent with long echoes that follow.

Heartwrenching an inflicted solo
Absent partner gripped in hand
Living out the passions it can
Handicapped by the giddily sanguine
Balancing the ballerina
In an enigmatic troth.

Wot a waste of parafin
Cast puff of sails moored in marina
Fastidious aloft ne’ertheless so quoth.

Come on, people, one poem does not a contest make. Skilled you are. There is no try... Oh, and wrong this first poem is...

Sorry, Pendragon. Fixed the second half of the fourth stanza.

I'm going to give it a try, but I don't really understand the pattern for the envoi.

Time to harvest tears and the dead,
the unadorned soldier in discomfited ground,
no longer bound to ancient books.
Imagine from an ample bed he walks
into the fray where others can’t, and each shell
that fires and falls has no sound and finds no blood.

For destiny and gods, the earth is soaked with blood,
religion binds the living to the dead
words of saviors and prophets, a shell
in which an ocean forever lashes at the ground,
as in a child’s fervid ears listening as he walks
along the shore, a bucket and some books

on chambered relics like vestiges of books,
in that they no longer harbor flesh and blood,
nor anything that slouches, crawls or walks,
and though beautiful and pearly, they are dead,
subject to the tide and time, and ground
slowly into sand forever moving in the earth’s shell.

Listen in the open air, put down the shell.
Read the face of fear and close your books.
What noble passions march unseen over the ground
to silence guns and still the flow of blood?
Let them grow, let them come that once were dead.
No freedom rings, no morning dawns where battle walks.

In each soldier gone, a final wish escaped and walks—
that bombs and bullets generate no awe, each shell
that kills falls empty like the dead,
like mothers, who find no solace in their holy books,
children in whom the image fades that flows within their blood,
and time once more erases names above the ground.

Time to harvest all the soldiers’ spirits from the ground,
let their last appetence be the force that forward walks
and flows at last in every generation as one blood.
May there be no escape from peace, the world’s a shell
around us all, one creature, in someone’s pail, someone’s books.
There is no killing one, where all of us aren’t dead.

Rise morning and spill golden where the children walk!
Let the shells be heard in bells and cautions in the books.
Blood flows only in the living, gods no longer need the dead.

REVISED



Blunt House


Identify the stars that both
The restive and the wretched follow,
Brought to life in a dewy arena
Known to man as dreamland;
In resolution of the feminine,
The bane of torture of the man.

Stubborn beings derive from man,
Break their faith to pledges both,
Thrown lots with the feminine,
Posed in fair fields, then slowly follow,
Clutching vacuous freedoms in dreamland
Inspired of ether, a whimsical arena.

Who basks in attentions in the arena,
Distributes pleasures for a man
Biding his revelatory rift, in shifting dreamland,
Satisfying poles, countered, both.
Then halt the esoteric that follow
To arrive somewhere in the feminine.

No concept of the richly feminine
Inasmuch as rivets the male arena,
Leaving stars awash to embark and follow
Insight to such dried Experience as can man
Be imminent as destroyer of the sexes both.
Youth joins in with outstretched hand in dreamland:

To apportion the forming lives in dreamland;
To bind the material with the feminine,
And so the sea pulses, and the sky both
Jumbling in the likewise arena,
In the footsteps of retiring man,
Redolent with the long echoes that follow.

Heartwrenching, the afflicted follow,
Absent partners gripped in dreamland,
Living out the passions a man,
Balked by the giddily feminine,
Balances in the arena
And the enigmatic rival countered in both.

When victory adorns iin dreamland the feminine
From the superfluous company that follow in the arena
That plainly questions their motions, man and myth both.




The following is not a submission. It's what i did with the rest of the original poem.


Bluff House


Do what she can to reclaim her troth
In a vestal and a tragic solo.
Brought back to life as a snowy ballerina
Given to give away her hand
In abolition of the sanguine
In sections of fruits that, tried so, stripped, so can.

Relegated beings do what they can,
Drain their pleas then supplant their troth,
Toss in their losses with the sanguine,
Repose in their fields, surreptitiously solo,
Closing actual deeds in hand
Required of either, a ballerina

Or a stag, hind of ballerina,
Purposed to befriend as can,
Lifts lady's midriff, in one hand
Demanding payment in her troth
Else abandon in revised solo
The object of his smirk sanguine.

Skilled concept of the smugly sanguine
Inasmuch as inverts the ballerina,
Leaves tiny stars abashed to embark solo;
Appetite for such plied cadence as can
Be ambivalent as Recoiler of their troth.
Firm youth stands in with outstretched hand

Pictured lithe with flowing hand
To bind the mysterious with the sanguine,
And so the stage pulses, presenting the troth
Rumbling between the ballerina,
And the shadow, resolute as he can,
Resplendently etching each-to-the-other's mellowing solo.

Gutwrenching each inflicted solo
Staid response flipped in hand
Sufficing with the rhythms it can
Coerced by the gaudily sanguine
Relinquishing the ballerina
Of her symbiotic troth.

A fastidious shift nevertheless to hand so the troth
The master of the enticing solo ballerina
Stealthy student who can delve in the sanguine.

What a labyrinthine maze the sestina is! Arranging the
permutations of a six-word pattern is like racking one's brain over a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle! I read that
in 1878 Swinburne wrote a rhyming double sestina with12-line stanzas and a six-line envoi. No wonder the
man drank! Anyway, here's my entry:



"Ninja" Gal

In this world made for us we're made to work:
sowing and reaping, building and ripping up our world.
The economy is too refined in our crude and greedy time.
Minions in suits run things, ruin things. They move
invisible money around: Nothing useful,nothing done by hand.
They transfer funds, crunch spreadsheets, manage assets.

Me, I'm outside the margin: “No income, no job, no assets.”
What doesn't bring home bucks and bacon isn't work.
On paper, little value accrues by my own hand.
Sewing and cleaning, cooking and washing make up the world
from which I crave escape, but too confined to move.
It could be a virtual prison, as if I'm doing time.

Reality seeks respite in dreams, as one time
I imagined I made a film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Assets.
Of course, I was an “auteur.” I shouted “Action!” to move
the crew to block and grip, light and shoot my life’s work.
Naturally I was the star, the greatest in the world.
In every scene I directed myself and gave myself a hand.

I played a ninja, packing lethal power in my hand
while gracefully leaping into the air, in so-mo or frozen time.
“Impossible” you say, “in a gravity-strung world.”
Well, you can't blame a gal for capitalizing on her assets,
no matter how many critics say they don't work
or how my earth-bound feet and fate refuse to move.

Clad in black jammies, cat-like I could move,
with a scarf round my forehead, my serious hand
pointed perpendicular to the sky. Would that work?
Not every movie made is worth the effort and time;
some slice profits open, gutting assets.
The bottom line’s the top star in the world.

I'm just not cut out for show biz, or maybe any world.
Like going straight to video, I just can't move
up. I'm a “ninja”– no income, no job, no assets.
Now, don't go around thinking I exist hand-
to-mouth. I'll remember to check in from time
to time and write if I find work.

Among the assets hidden in the world,
rewards for work might someday move
into my empty hand. When’s Show Time?

LOL! My sentiments exactly and I thanked God several times for the gift of wine while writing mine.

And might I add, that is an amazing sestina. I think the flow is as unforced as Elizabeth Bishops sestina about the grandmother and child.

Great job, Aunty!

They were so awkward, in this mother daughter dance
One was the hard bright light of the noonday sun
And the wind and the lightening that formed the storm,
The other, the owl and the mouse on a midnight hunt, a dreamer
Who, book in hand, wondered and wandered
Through magic lands, a creature of the nightlit moon

She a raven who cawed fearful premonitions to the full moon
Who lured her love with her large dark eyes and a fearful dance
Who was born in one home, swore fealty to it, never wandered
Or wondered about the world, who left but came home to the sun
The daughter, fated to leave, to never come home, a dreamer
of dreams, yet dreamless, in the dreamtime, in the storm

Each loved the other with a fearful love, within a fearful storm
Each longed to touch, together, the silver rays of the moon
The mother never gave up on her wayward dreamer
And though she pined until she was shadow, she had the dance
She always danced with her lover, content together in the sun
While the other, fearful of the mirror that was her mother, wandered

And her mother, thoughts running this way and that, wandered
Into the land of “what if” and dwelt there long and long through storm,
Sunshine and shadow and wondered; and blinded, never saw the sun
The daughter, fearful of the storm, hid in the midnight moon,
Shut the door against the whirling dervish, and never learned to dance
Knew the contours of her midnight land, and there, a dreamer

Stayed; then one silver night a dreaming dance began, and the dreamer
Gave up the midnight land, and loved the sun and wandered
Nevermore; and the sun and the moon began a lovely dance,
Nevermore to be woebegone and caged within the storm;
Lovely, large, and luminous, she waxed and waned, but never moon
Did waver, she knew she loved the lion’s roar, knew she loved the sun

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And so the dreamer stayed the storm
And happily wandered in her land of moon
To happily dance with her mother by the light of the midnight sun

alakungfu, AuntShecky, firefangled, you have all done a magnificent, outstanding job. This was a tough one; I almost didn't make it, but I knew I had to try!

gimissung, after reading a poem like yours, you say to yourself (I do at least), "that's what I meant."" Lovely poem.

:) Thank you, alakungfu!

Wow! I am astounded at the talent in these entries! Gonna be a very tough one to judge, let me tell you. Wonderful poetry, some of the best I have read in a coon's age! :thumbs_up:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by qimissung

They were so awkward, in this mother daughter dance
One was the hard bright light of the noonday sun
And the wind and the lightening that formed the storm,
The other, the owl and the mouse on a midnight hunt, a dreamer
Who, book in hand, wondered and wandered
Through magic lands, a creature of the nightlit moon

She a raven who cawed fearful premonitions to the full moon
Who lured her love with her large dark eyes and a fearful dance
Who was born in one home, swore fealty to it, never wandered
Or wondered about the world, who left but came home to the sun
The daughter, fated to leave, to never come home, a dreamer
of dreams, yet dreamless, in the dreamtime, in the storm

Each loved the other with a fearful love, within a fearful storm
Each longed to touch, together, the silver rays of the moon
The mother never gave up on her wayward dreamer
And though she pined until she was shadow, she had the dance
She always danced with her lover, content together in the sun
While the other, fearful of the mirror that was her mother, wandered

And her mother, thoughts running this way and that, wandered
Into the land of “what if” and dwelt there long and long through storm,
Sunshine and shadow and wondered; and blinded, never saw the sun
The daughter, fearful of the storm, hid in the midnight moon,
Shut the door against the whirling dervish, and never learned to dance
Knew the contours of her midnight land, and there, a dreamer

Stayed; then one silver night a dreaming dance began, and the dreamer
Gave up the midnight land, and loved the sun and wandered
Nevermore; and the sun and the moon began a lovely dance,
Nevermore to be woebegone and caged within the storm;
Lovely, large, and luminous, she waxed and waned, but never moon
Did waver, she knew she loved the lion’s roar, knew she loved the sun

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And so the dreamer stayed the storm
And happily wandered in her land of moon
To happily dance with her mother by the light of the midnight sun

---

Thank God I didn't know when I first came across it thanks to Alakungfu that it was written according to the rules of the sestina or all the pleasure - the IMMENSE pleasure - I got from it might have been undermined by the whiplash of double-checking to see if qimmisung was following the rules! I still don't know if she was or not. What I do know and treasure is the feeling I got both times I read it that somehow each line was more full than the number of words or syllables in it might lead you to believe, that there was always more here than was being said.

Damn! this is GOOD! And seems to be as spontaneous as if it was following no rules!

:lol: So true, Prince, so true!

But thank you, more than I can say.

With a sestina you go round in circles
The same end words again, again
Each repetition setting up new hurdles
You have to fill the given form with something new.
And so you come to think how in this pattern
You have to re-invent yourself from day to day.

Your Monday, Tuesday, Wednes- and Thurs- and Friday
Fill weeks and months and years in endless circles.
Your life a quilt - can you detect the pattern?
There, in that patch the girl-child cries again
And that old rag of habit: nothing new
You walk through life and find the same old hurdles.

You want to run - your path is blocked by hurdles
You shy away, the same as yesterday
You know that path and yet the hurdle's always new.
So tired are you from the ceaseless circles
You think you cannot face them once again.
You want to break out from the tiring pattern.

Just add a little variation to the pattern.
Perhaps you cn crawl under some big hurdles
And when another blocks your way again
You see how you can jump it one fine day
When you have gathered strength walking in circles
And suddenly your world looks almost new.

A single tone in your life's melody sounds new
And that fresh note reverses the old pattern
Where you just walked your feet now dance in circles
And playfully you lift surprisingly light hurdles
The tiredness you feel around the ending of that day
Feels good and sleep becomes refreshing once again.

You live, breathe deeper, even dance again
The greying quilt of life has colours that seem new
You find the strength to face the challenge of the day.
You can still recognize the well-known pattern
And no one has removed a single hurdle
But you see islands, Sundays in the circles.

And looking back again at your quilt's pattern
At old and new, smooth paths and giant hurdles
You add another day to life's sestina circles.

It astonishes me, Windblown, and several of you others, that you submitted poems as graceful and free-flowing as if they had been written without ANY rules rather than with this barbed-wire necklace over your shoulders and around your arms! Although I shudder from the thought of trying one my (obsessive) self, I see in these the truth that adversity sometimes makes for grace.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

It astonishes me, Windblown, and several of you others, that you submitted poems as graceful and free-flowing as if they had been written without ANY rules rather than with this barbed-wire necklace over your shoulders and around your arms! Although I shudder from the thought of trying one my (obsessive) self, I see in these the truth that adversity sometimes makes for grace.

---

I'm willing to bet, Prince, that if you tried one, you'd surprise yourself, but not necessarily us, because we've seen what you can do with verse. Your sestina might be the best entry of all. "You never know"-- to quote the State Lottery, who also gave us the immortal slogan -- "You gotta get in it to win it."

I chose the Sestina for this contest because it is hard to write one well. The poets have answered the challange with wonderful verses. Try it Jer. I am always a fair judge in these contests.

Contest now closed. Now comes the fun part, trying to judge these wonderful poems.

Firefangled:

I love these lines from your sestina:

Quote:

---

Time to harvest all the soldiers’ spirits from the ground,
let their last appetence be the force that forward walks
and flows at last in every generation as one blood.
May there be no escape from peace, the world’s a shell
around us all, one creature, in someone’s pail, someone’s books.
There is no killing one, where all of us aren’t dead.

---

You missed one word in your closing envoi, which I am going to allow as an honest mistake!’

Alakungfu:

These were great lines from your sestina:

Quote:

---

No concept of the richly feminine
Inasmuch as rivets the male arena,
Leaving stars awash to embark and follow
Insight to such dried Experience as can man
Be imminent as destroyer of the sexes both.
Youth joins in with outstretched hand in dreamland:

---

You unfortunately missed the entire point of the envoi, which was the six words, two to a line!

Auntie:

I love these lines from your sestina:

Quote:

---

Me, I'm outside the margin: “No income, no job, no assets.”
What doesn't bring home bucks and bacon isn't work.
On paper, little value accrues by my own hand.
Sewing and cleaning, cooking and washing make up the world
from which I crave escape, but too confined to move.
It could be a virtual prison, as if I'm doing time.

---

Your envoi is both right and wonderful!

qimisung:

I love these lines from your sestina:

Quote:

---

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

---

And your envoi is to die for!

Windblown:

You were very creative in your use of end words such as here:

Quote:

---

Your Monday, Tuesday, Wednes- and Thurs- and Friday
Fill weeks and months and years in endless circles.
Your life a quilt - can you detect the pattern?
There, in that patch the girl-child cries again
And that old rag of habit: nothing new
You walk through life and find the same old hurdles.

---

Well done! But you also messed up on the envoi, the six words, two words to a line, remember this!


All said and done, the contest goes to qimisung who may choose the next form. Thanks to all of you wonderful poets!

:thumbs_up:thumbs_up:thumbs_up:thumbs_up:thumbs_up

Congratulations!

Well deserved qimissung! Your sestina was masterful and poignant. I have read it several times since it appeared. So many of the lines are like nothing I have ever read for their originality and what they lend to the poem.

You have come through the labyrinthine task of writing in this form gloriously.

Personally, I have sworn off sestinas forever because they drive me to drink. :lol::lol:

Thank you, Pendragon. I am touched and honored. Firefangled, Alakungvfu, Auntie, Windblown-yours were equally tremendous. I read each of them several times, and frankly, liked them better than the famous examples I sought out. I don't think I will ever forget the night I spent writing this-nor do I think I will ever write one again (although I didn't drink, I probably would have benefited! ). :lol:

I will have a new form by tomorrow.

Sorry, Pendragon, but I must say that I learned a lot about metre from this choice of form. Thank you for choosing it.

Congratulations, qimissung. I'll have to pay closer attention to the instructions of the next form, whatever you choose. And I was expecting you to win this time. That poem was tremendous.

Our next form is going to be a dramatic monologue. This form was used in Greek plays, and of course Shakespeare used it to good effect. Robert Browning wrote several, the most famous of which is "The Last Duchess".

Here is an explanation from poets.org:

Dramatic monologue in poetry, also known as a persona poem, shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice"a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities that are left to the audience to interpret.

You can read the rest of the entry here:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5776

There are several excellent examples of this type of poetry at this site. In fact I found some of them quite daunting. Nevertheless, knowing my litnet friends are nothing if not intrepid, I decided to proceed.

I'm presenting a poem by Sylvia Plath as an example, and another written by me, as it hardly seems cricket to judge something you have not first attempted. Good luck to one and all, and above all, have fun! :)

The contest will close March 15.

Qimissung

by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

And now for mine. Following Sylvia Plath seems somewhat foolhardy, but here goes:

The Prince of Cats

We glide into the night, my friends and I
Indistinguishable from one another
Our voices echoing off the night wind
And each others’ faces
We get buzzed
The elixir of our manhood pillages my tongue
Reaches into crevices and washes out
The dregs of my psyche onto the night

We talk
The firelight of our conversation
Flickers on the faces of my friends
I am their reflected light
In the shine of oil and water
On the street
The moon on the fast-moving clouds
The ping of a headlight on the
Fender of our car
I glimmer and I ‘m gone

It’s night and I am the Prince of Cats
The road and I converge
Our massive muscles writhing
As we unfurl our sinuous tail
Lashing it across the wasted landscape
The car careens
What did I leave behind?
Who did I escape?
My lungs plummet into the absolute zero of space

Dazed I look around
Reach out
Take
I don’t where I am
But I know that I’ll be doing this again

My World

I did it!
I finally did it.
I didn’t believe myself
That I could
But I can’t ever say again
That I didn’t do it.
Because it’s a fact now.

And, now, what do I do?
That was my forever-
Be-all-end-all
My reason for dreaming,
To see how vast
I could dream
With my eyes closed,
What challenge I was
Solid enough to meet
With my eyes open.

How do you replace your dream?
Your whole life thrusts
In a different direction
And you follow it?
I used to run with my dream.

It’s so strange not to want
That anymore,
Not to be unconditionally enamored of life.
Today I embraced life
Like my brother,
Like we’re in it
From now on
Together
But no longer ‘til the end.
Life has a real shape for me
“The End” is just a table
Within a random plane
Where before it was a shattering peak
Gaping into a bravely framed oblivion.

The end, the irreplaceable,
Has been replaced
In my perspective
With my Soul.
I no longer carry a partly full
Vessel within my body as my conscience.
I have a burgeoning soul,
My index for beautiful dreams
That I might one day attain
Depending on those that I’m virtually drawn to.

But did I say I’ve found fulfillment?
There is, after all, the impossible still.
For life, there is no justification
No answer.
I am sustained in my search by my precious option
Love
Which penetrates
My grounding principle
My psyche.

"The End" is just a table within a random frame..." that is just one image I love in this poem. In fact you create a series of images with this persona, all the while leaving our imaginations to wildly surmise. Well done, Alakungfu, well done.

Congratulations, qimissung! Pendragon chose well! I simply love your images and the elegant flow of your lines.

Thank you, Windblown. I look forward to seeing your entry in the next contest! :)

Nice Girls Finish Last

The Last Duchess of Ferrara

So here I am, nailed to the wall.
Why marvel that the painting looks more alive
now? Then, I wonder how I sat so still.
Though Fra Pandolf’s hands busily worked
all day, we passed the time in pleasant chat:
we noted the sun’s soft slants as they filtered
through the room, how the summer breezes reached that window so far from the sea. Somehow
the salt air seemed a bit colder this year.

Then, the session over, Fra Pandolf complained
to you how my mantle overlapped my wrist
and how mortal paint could never capture
that “half-flush that dies” along my throat--
He flattered me!-- yet of my neck, the knives
of your henchmen knew more than you. The blush,
that unwitting glow, the friendly banter, died.
Esteem survives amid your silent artifacts.

I used to be easily pleased, impressed by life:
the improbable bough of cherries, each day’s
sunset, gifts expecting no reciprocal return
for their simple elegance. Round
and round the over-groomed terrace I'd ride
on a mule, remarkable for its humility,
whose loyalty outran the fastest steed.

The mutual comity of sad smiles,
the camaraderie of beauty shared
meant more to me than any noble name.
My nature was such that I felt at home
with peasant souls who made their home
in Nature, with strong men and women
for whom mere breathing was a work of art –

until. . . Now as a host you're sweeping through
an agent who seems so easily impressed
by upper trappings and marble floors.
Once again the name is on the market,
my replacement soon to be consigned.
Tell her for me to keep her selfhood low,
her personality wrapped in mantled gowns.

Should my portrait hang around, relate
to her the same tale you told your guest.
May the next duchess attempt to thrive
as some gilded knickknack rose. You –
may Neptune rise up and drag you down
into the brewing froth as your seahorse,
heavy with gold, cheaply drowned.

Very impressive, AuntShecky; nice play on the "The Last Duchess" poem, also!