The Sunday Mini-Challenge

This weekend's stanza format is taken from my reading of Paul Laurence Dunbar, who first wrote the line: "I know why the caged bird sings!" in his poem Sympathy. He also devised an interesting 7 line stanza, used in the poem Melancholia, which relies on a syllable count and rhyme scheme, and this is the form we will focus on today.

© Mama Zen

The opening stanza of Melancholia gives the model for the structure of subsequent stanzas:

Silently without my window,  (a)   8 syllables
Tapping gently at the pane,  (b)   7 syllables 
Falls the rain.  (b)   3 syllables
Through the trees sighs the breeze (Internal rhyme c / c) 6 syllables
Like a soul in pain.  (b)   5 syllables
Here alone I sit and weep;  (d)   7 syllables
Thought hath banished sleep.  (d)   5 syllables

The meter is trochaic but I mention this only for the purists.

© Ellen Wilson

October, as it is experienced in the Northern Hemisphere, always strikes me as being a month of paradoxes: the give of the harvest and the take of Fall; a sinister festival of the dead in All Hallows' Eve, which is followed immediately by a day of celebration for the Hallowed Saints. Of course, there is the unsettled sense of change which occurs as life instinctively prepares for Winter.

© Isadora Gruye

I have selected several photos for our further inspiration that are in keeping with the many moods of October. The photographers are members or followers (or friends) of Real Toads, who freely share their work here with us. Please remember to acknowledge the name of the photographer whose work you display on your blog.

© Teresa Perin

For those who would like to try the stanza form and would like another example, I have republished a poem on Skywriting that I wrote in 2009 (back when I first started writing, I often purloined forms). However, I fully intend to make a second attempt at it this weekend.  For those who prefer the Free Verse option, please focus on an October theme, or a photograph from this post.

© H.J. Clark

The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the form challenge.  Please provide a link on your blog back to Real Toads.  We stipulate that only poems written for this challenge may be added to the Mr Linky.  Management reserves the right to remove unrelated links, but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link Monday.