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Saturday, December 31, 2011

A Mini-Challenge for the New Year's Weekend

Happy New Year...




Bearing in mind that many of the faithful followers of Real Toads may be celebrating the start of 2012 this weekend, I have decided to take the idea of something NEW to another level.
No, this is not a wordle prompt, though it does have a wordle graphic.  


This mini-challenge involves each of us, who would like to play, creating our own short form poem by devising the structure according to syllables, rhyme scheme, line length and/or stanzas.  This is not as difficult as it may first seem. Even those of us who write in free verse tend to favor a kind of pattern; this challenge asks us to formulate our style, to a certain extent.  There is a precedent for this exercise: you will remember our introduction to the 'stellar verse', namely The Pleiades form.  This form inspired DR F.T.S.E. to invent his own 'stellar verse', which he named The Orion


Guidelines:
  • Length of poem 1 - 15 lines
  • Decide on the syllable count of each line
  • Will you include a rhyme scheme?
  • Will it be divided into stanzas?
  • Any acrostic, or alphabet elements?
  • Make up a title for your form
I realize that I will have to put my money where my mouth is, so I have devised the following form, which I will call "Free Falling Verse".  It relies solely on syllable count and division of stanzas: 5-8-7-6  (stanza 1, in which subject is introduced) 5-8-7-6-5-8-7-3 (stanza 2, containing main focus of figurative language)  5-8-7 (stanza 3, concluding thoughts on theme).  Wish me luck in trying to write something to fit this scheme and I wish you luck in creating your own.  Have fun trying something entirely NEW


The link will not expire, so please come back later in the week with your innovation.







20 comments:

  1. Sorry, not really new: I invented it though, for a Poetic Asides challenge.

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  2. ah what an interesting challenge! the last form I threw together, I can't remember how it worked ha, may have a think on this!

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  3. Haha! Your short sestina, OT? I'm sure I have it stored somewhere.. I know I wrote one.

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  4. ThanQ for the attribution, Kerry. For bloggers who might have puzzled over my blogname - "FTSE" - is the acronym of "Financial Times Stock Exchange" (index of 100 leading shares.) See . . I make HEAPS more from shares than I ever did from poems. Lifetime earnings from poetry . . about $100 (Australian)

    Happy New Year folks.

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  5. Now look what you've done. You've sent your most form phobic Toad into brainlock.

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  6. My offering, "Only Wait" is one of my attempts to push the boundaries of the limerick form.

    Not new for today, but new in that I don't think anyone else has done it successfully yet. I don't have a name for the form yet ("Semaphore Limerick"? "Peralta Limerick"?), but it is defined by two qualities:

    1. It is made out of two or more linked verses in strict limerick form
    2. It carries a theme that is strictly not ribald or nonsensical

    It's not easy to do, given that our brains are programmed for nonsense verse when faced with that limerick rhythm and rhyme scheme!

    But it works - I've written three already, and this is one of them.

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  7. Sadly, any prospects for a happy new year were dashed this morning, when I learnt of the death of one of our matriculant students, who was struck by lighting while shooting fireworks in a storm 2 hours before midnight. This senseless tragedy has knocked me off my feet.

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  8. Oh, Kerry, how absolutely dreadful. I'm sure none of our nonsense is going to help in the face of such a tragedy.
    Please accept my sincere condolences.
    —Kay

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  9. Thank you, Grace and Kay. I'm still in shock, to be honest. So sad.

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  10. I'm so sorry to hear about the student, Kerry.

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  11. All my sympathies, Kerry. That's a difficult blow, especially at a time of beginnings.

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  12. I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. My sympathies!

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  13. So sorry, Kerry. A dreadful thing to happen.

    I tried a new form. Decided to write a ten line poem, with each line having ten syllables. The first and tenth line were to be the same. I succeeded and linked the poem

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  14. That was quite a challenge, Kerry. Mine is called Raveled Rhyme.

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  15. So sorry to hear of such a tragic loss, Kerry.

    It took a while to work out a new form, I call it a Symmetrical Acrostic. Great challenge, really made me work the ol' brain!

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  16. Kerry,
    I am so sorry for your loss~
    Such a tragedy!

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  17. Kerry, I'm sorry to read about the loss to your community; I pray for comfort for all involved and affected by it.

    I followed a link over from Laurie's blog, and the idea of creating a new form was too appealing to pass up. I hope you all enjoy it.

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  18. Well...I did it! Just fashionably late once again ;-)

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