Form Poem Contest

[the silent x]

could you explain the petrarch in "caveman speak"(really dumbed down) i got lost reading your description, just give me the requirements please

[Niamh]

could you explain the petrarch in "caveman speak"(really dumbed down) i got lost reading your description, just give me the requirements please

Ok the form of the poem is this,
Petrarchan;
Octave (8 lines) split into two Quatrains (groups of 4 lines)the first carries the same theme into the second.
then there is a Sestet (6 lines, last three used as conclusion) new theme int first three lines leading to the conclusion in the last three.
abba,abba, cde,cde.
laid out with eight lines space six lines

Shakespearian
three Quatrains (groups of 4 lines) three separate themes
then a couplet (2 lines for conclusion)
abab,cdcd,efef,gg
No spaces

The Patrick kavanagh poem is both of these and is laid out like this;
Laid out in Octave and sestet form of petarchan
three quadrains (groups of lines) first two are in the octave same theme
third one is in the sestet different theme
them a concluding couplet (two lines)
i think its
abab, cdcd, ebeb,ff

so its something like this
a--
b :---------
a :Quadrain:
b-- :Octave
c-- :
d :Quadrain:
c :---------
d--

e--
b :---------
e :Quadrain:
b-- :Sestet
f-|couplet :
f-|----------

[the silent x]

ok, thanks, i may not be able to get this form down, but i'll try

[Niamh]

Any takers? Anyone willing to try?

[Pendragon]

Good gobbledy-goo! Tell me I am not the only entry! Come on, somebody can beat me! You get in here and try before I withdraw my entry! This is competition! Come on, write!

[Niamh]

Adol also entered, so i've got two entries. Sorry pen i think i killed the thread. Maybe if someone else wants to take over and suggest a better form we might get the ball rolling again....

[Petrarch's Love]

You haven't killed the thread, Niamh. There are two weeks left to submit and people may just be busy. Anyway, here's my two cents:

Scene in a Home

Still life of a bowl of fruit and flowers
Painted on a summer’s day and filled with light,
The ticking clock telling the steady hours
As glowing dawn replaces the dark night,
A vase of spring’s first yellow daffodils,
An open book with half yet to be read,
The whisper breeze crossing the windowsill,
The gentle hand that strokes the resting head.

Deathbed where the hand grasps the sheets
With near skeletal frailty and the ear
Closes to the sound of the clock’s steady beat;
Eye closes to the memory from past years
Of little things enjoyed while she, in quiet hours,
Painted the still life of a bowl of fruit and flowers.

[Virgil]

Adol also entered, so i've got two entries. Sorry pen i think i killed the thread. Maybe if someone else wants to take over and suggest a better form we might get the ball rolling again....

No you didn't kill it. I'm sorry Niamh. I've been partly preoccupied and partly uninspired lately. If I got two weeks left I will try to submit something.

[NickAdams]

I'm in. Let me see what I can do. Please tell me if I make a mistake.

[NickAdams]

What love! Husband and wife for oaths exchanged;
Their garden sowed with faith
Her labor inherits father's name
In a chapel where she waits.

Can not an orbit cease,
nor a reaping be delayed?
At the withering of leaves,
spring and fall are weighed.

What lust! A farmer this mistress made.
More acres to invest,
so depletes the pond within barren land.

The length of one, should a garden lay.
Safe from vermin; safe from pest.
Unexplored and undiscovered.

[Niamh]

You haven't killed the thread, Niamh. There are two weeks left to submit and people may just be busy. Anyway, here's my two cents:

Scene in a Home

Still life of a bowl of fruit and flowers
Painted on a summer’s day and filled with light,
The ticking clock telling the steady hours
As glowing dawn replaces the dark night,
A vase of spring’s first yellow daffodils,
An open book with half yet to be read,
The whisper breeze crossing the windowsill,
The gentle hand that strokes the resting head.

Deathbed where the hand grasps the sheets
With near skeletal frailty and the ear
Closes to the sound of the clock’s steady beat;
Eye closes to the memory from past years
Of little things enjoyed while she, in quiet hours,
Painted the still life of a bowl of fruit and flowers.

Wow! well done petrarch!

What love! Husband and wife for oaths exchanged;
Their garden sowed with faith
Her labor inherits father's name
In a chapel where she waits.

Can not an orbit cease,
nor a reaping be delayed?
At the withering of leaves,
spring and fall are weighed.

What lust! A farmer this mistress made.
More acres to invest,
so depletes the pond within barren land.

The length of one, should a garden lay.
Safe from vermin; safe from pest.
Unexplored and undiscovered.

nick yours is a nice poem but the layout is wrong. Have a look at the other entrants and the explaination of the form. Needs restructuring.

[Niamh]

ten days left for entries! hope more of you accept the challenge!

[Niamh]

Only seven days left for entries!

[SteveH]

On William Dyce's 'Pegwell Bay, a recollection of October 5th, 1858'

Autumn and Evening make a double ending.
The parchment sky's reflected in the sea.
Two women, both collecting shells, are bending
To look at one. A third waits patiently.
A child who holds a spade is gazing at
Some distant scene or object off the land.
Remoter figures walk across the flat
And rock-strewn beach, or, like the donkeys, stand.

Donati's comet's faintly seen above
The fossil-laden cliffs, whose strata seem
To show, more clearly than a book could prove,
The scale of evolutionary time.
New knowledge strains old certainties. The child
Is looking, maybe, at a coming world.


I wrote this in 1996. I'll try writing a sonnet or other poem specially for future competitions, but I haven't actually written any poems for a year or two - I really ought to get back into the habit.

Donati's comet was visible in October 1858, and in the full-size painting is faintly visible in the sky above the cliffs, but you can't make it out in my linked reproduction, unfortunately, so you'll have to take my word for it!

I've got plenty of other Petrarchan/Shakespearean hybrids: is it done to submit more than one poem to these competitions? (I wouldn't go too mad, of course.)

[SteveH]

'Scene in a Home' by P.L. (above) is excellent and rather moving. I like the way it comes full circle in a somewhat darker mode from how it started, and the volta is spot-on.