Sunday Mini-Challenge: Chained Rhyme, Part Two

Chained, by Lall, Creative Commons, flick'r

Hello, Toads. This is hedgewitch, bringing you the second part of my chained rhyme mini-challenge. Actually, the word rhyme here is a bit of a misnomer, as today we are going to consider the larger subject of chained verse, exploring something called the Cascade.

You'll remember that last time we looked at the purest definition of chained rhyme, where the last syllable of one line rhymed with the first syllable of the next. I mentioned that many traditional poetic forms use a more complex definition, which is also known as interlocking, or chained verse. This is often defined broadly as per wikipedia: Chain[ed] rhyme [or verse] is the linking together of stanzas by carrying a rhyme over from one stanza to the next.

This simply means that you use a rhyme scheme which repeats a rhyme from one stanza in the succeeding stanzas, such as in the terza rima, composed of tercets, with a pattern of a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, etc. and ending in a rhymed couplet to the d line, or the Rubaiyat quatrain, rhyming AABA, which Kerry has given us before as a mini-challenge, and can also be chained where succeeding quatrains pick up the third line as the main rhyme for the next, as in the celebrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Wait! Stop! Don’t click that mouse!

Now that I've thoroughly confused you, you'll be glad to know we aren't going to delve into either of those forms today (unless someone feels adventurous, of course--I'd love to read either one.)  No, I was just toying with you. Instead, we're going to chain entire lines, not syllables, not rhyme schemes, in an invented modern form of chained verse called the cascade. If it seems familiar, it may be because Marian Kent gave us an example of a similar type of chaining in her explication (and excellent example) of the Garland Cinquin last weekend.

The cascade is a form I first saw at the now defunct Big Tent Poetry. It's invention is attributed to Udit Bhatia, about whom I could find out nothing online, except that fact.

The rules are simple: write a short poem (or single complete image ) of three to five lines (or more if ambitious, but this is a mini-challenge.)  Choose your lines and subject carefully as you are now going to deconstruct that poem and use each line as the concluding line of a stanza. That is, your first line will end your second stanza, your second line will be the last line of your third stanza, and so forth. Each stanza should have the same number of lines as your original poem. If you wrote a three line original poem, you will end up with a four stanza cascade. This sort of structure will give a slowly building, cascading effect to the piece, hence the name.

To get to the nuts and bolts, here's a simple one I worked up as an example. The first stanza is a very short standalone poem which completes a thought:

Even the hottest fire burns out

but not until it has taken

all that will burn.

The next step is to write a second stanza that builds from that, and uses the first line as the last, then a third ending with the second line, and so on, till you end the last stanza with the last line. 

Here's the completed cascade:

Fire

Even the hottest fire burns out
but not until it has taken
all that will burn.

A foot kicked through ashes
stirs  a feathery-cold cloud;
even the hottest fire burns out.

The flame of the bird on the spit is
long gone. The memory swallows,
but not until it has taken

 crisped wings, charred
bones, the spindle's pierce; not
all that will burn.

© joyannjones

If you'd like to see a few more examples, here's a link to the Shadow Poetry site which gives an explanation as well as an example by the inventor. And here are links to two others I've written, one with a simple rhyme scheme, The Ghoul and the Weavers, and a longer, more complex one where I've altered some of the phrasing in the end lines, Train Time.  

Hint: the longer your first stanza, the longer the poem becomes. It's a very organic process.

So toads, the challenge is to write a poem in the cascade form, where each line of the first stanza is used in sequence as the ending line of succeeding stanzas, line one ending the second, line two the third, etc. Each stanza should have the same number of lines as your first, and your completed poem will thus be one stanza longer than the number of lines in each, i.e., a four line initial stanza will equal a five stanza poem.

While attention should definitely be paid to the rules, don't be intimidated by them.  I encourage everyone once again to play around with this, to have fun and get creative--your response could be as simple and repetitive as a song lyric hook, as short as a chain of haiku-like tercets where lines are reused, or as complex as you want to make it. Rhyme it, or not, use a meter, or just make it free verse all the way, with the first stanza broken up into the lines that end each thought in an unbroken merge. 

For those who are just not into exploring this particular style, by all means feel free to exceed expectations and do a terza rima or Rubaiyat as described earlier.

You may also eschew form completely and write a free verse piece around the theme of Chains. I've included a few of my amateur garden photos again; feel free to reuse them with attribution.

As always, in the spirit of these challenges to encourage and expand our writing, please write a new poem to either the form challenge or free verse option, and post it here with a link back to the Imaginary Garden. Finally, enjoy!