The Sunday Mini-Challenge

It is time to deck the halls, mull the wine, wrap the gifts and turn our thoughts to giving and sharing. For those who would like to turn their minds to Christmas poetry this weekend, perhaps as an added gift to attach to a present, I offer the basics of Common and Hymnal Measure, with the option of an 8-line verse form.

© Teresa Perin

Eden Hills Photography

Common Measure is a standard 4-line stanza written in alternate lines of iambic tetrameter (8 syllables, with the beat on the even syllables) and iambic trimeter (6 syllables, with the beat on the even syllables too.). The rhyme scheme is as follows with x signifying a single unstressed syllable, and x a single stressed syllable.

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
x x x x x b

© Ellen Wilson

Hymnal Measure is basically the same stanza form, except the
c rhyme is replaced with an a rhyme. Source


x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b

© Margaret Bednar
i and I

The Common or Hymnal Octave is an 8-line poem based on the forms above:

Common Octave

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
x x x x x b

Hymnal Octave

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b                                                                                                       

Many thanks to the friends and members of Real Toads who generously share their photographic talent with us year round. Please remember to acknowledge the name of the photographer if you include her image on your blog.

© Isadora Gruye

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.

The Sunday Mini-Challenge

© Kenia Cris

A fortnight ago, we tried our hands at a stanza form devised by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and today I would like to turn attention to a stanza form employed by Louis Macneice, in his poem The Sunlight on the Garden.

The stanzas are written in six lines and set out as follows:
xxxxxxa  (7 syllables ~ double rhyme, feminine)
xaxxb      (5 syllables ~ single rhyme, masculine
                     and double rhyme feminine on syllables 1-2, a rhyme)

xxxxxxc  (7 syllables ~ double rhyme, feminine)

xcxxxb    (6 syllables ~ single rhyme, masculine

                     and double rhyme feminine on syllables 1-2, c rhyme)

xxxb        (4 syllables ~ single rhyme, masculine)

xxxxxxa  (7 syllables ~ double rhyme, feminine)

The opening stanza of Macneice's poem:

The sunlight on the garden

Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute

Within its net of gold,           (Here the c rhyme falls on syllables 2-3)

When all is told

We cannot beg for pardon.

© Ellen Wilson

The form may seem tricky, but the end result is a stanza with elegant balance between the various rhymes and line lengths.  However, feel free to adapt this basic layout to suit your own taste and style.  Alternatively, you may choose to use one of the photos kindly shared by our Real Toad members as inspiration for a poem written in Free Verse.

© Susie Clevenger

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.

Hallow's Edge

Well Toads, I am beyond thrilled to be the one to share a prompt with you today!  I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love the mystery, the fun and candy.   Today,  I was going to enchant you with a spellbound type poem, but then I thought about ghosts.  Do you believe in ghosts?  I have had two occasions where I have felt an odd, almost a chill in the air.   Have you had an encounter?

My father had died suddenly, my first year in college.  I commuted daily and worked in the evenings at a local movie theater.  One night, not long after his death I was driving home, when I was nearing the darkest part of my ride.  Moosepoint State Park is so dark and yes, moose have been known to cross the road there.   I could feel the presence of someone sitting in the passenger seat-I was alone.  It felt as if I was being stared at. It was such an odd feeling, I turned the light on.  When I did my headlights went out...I'm at the darkest part of my trip, with no headlights.  It is 10:40pm.  I'm freaking, I'm scared...the lights come back on.  I can feel a presence, as if someone was sitting next to me in the passenger seat-I was alone.  I rode home with the light on.  I finally relaxed a bit and said, "Thanks Dad, I love you" and kept driving. When I got home, my Mom was up and I told her, what had happened.  We agreed the next day, after school to get my car to the garage. I did, I was told nothing was wrong. They couldn't find anything wrong with my lights, or switches or any loose wiring. It never happened again.   I do believe it was my Dad saying good-bye.  I still can feel this experience, as if it happened a month ago. It was that vivid!

 The other ghost encounter was a couple of years ago.  My daughter and I had heard there were a few homes, in our area considered haunted.   One is about a mile and half from my house.  She went with me. We drove the car and parked across the street, at a local church.  We walked near the home and snapped some photos.   When I uploaded the photos, I thought the door looked odd.  So, I enlarged it...Do you see her?  Do you see the ghost?

Here is the house:

 L@@K again...

 I have asked many people, what do you see?  Some say trees and some see a ghost. What do you see?   Click on it and look~


When Kerry mentioned the Sunday Mini Challenge, before Halloween...she also mentioned wanting to do a ghost type prompt.  I told her this is what i was thinking,  too.  She was gracious enough to let me have it, even though I told her to go ahead.  I could do a spellbinding type prompt, instead.  So Toads today in the garden you have a choice.  YOU can write a poem that is spellbinding, think Harry Potter, witches and their spell books, etc or you can write a ghostly tale.  It wouldn't be Halloween with out a TRICK!   You must use a line from a ghost poem in your poem.  Here is a list you can select from:   Click  HERE

I look forward to your spooktacular poems!   Damn, I tried a spellbound poem and it is working...
I'm turning into a Toad!    Beware I think it is the eye of newt... 

Hope you and yours have a bewitching holiday full of magic, a bit of enchantment and lots of candy!

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.

The Sunday Mini-Challenge

Last week we focused on the four-line form of stanza, known as the Envelope Quatrain, and I would like us to consider the possibilities of other quatrain forms today. Despite the quatrain's perennial popularity among  poets, it can be fairly limiting, as there are only so many rhyme variations possible:

Alternate:
a b a b
a b x b

Couplet:
a a b b

Envelope:
a b b a

And various combinations:
a b c b    d e c e
a a b a    b b c b
a b c d    a b c d

© Kenia Cris

While I was searching for a poetical form which consists of only 4 lines, I came across a genre of Chinese poetry called Midnight Songs.  A collection of these poems under the title "Lady Midnight" appeared in the 4th Century AD, and were popularized by famous poets, such as Li Po. The poems are arranged into four sections for the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Thematically, they represent four views of the seasons. They are written in four lines (paired couplets), each of which consists of 5 Chinese characters, known as yuefu.

© Ellen Wilson

This information led me on to discover a similar form called Jueju. Jue Ju is one of the oldest of the Chinese patterns and in the 3rd century AD the Jue Ju was very popular. It often carried "suggestively erotic themes". It does not tell a story but attempts to create a mood. This example is given on Poetry Magnum Opus:

Autumn Moon by Cheng Hao
(translated by Xiao-zhen, Nov 2009)

Over green hills a limpid brook flows
Sky mirrored in the water of autumn hue
Away from the distant earthly world
Maple leaves and velvet clouds leisurely float

© Teresa Perin

If one is to attempt an English version of this poetic style, the following guidelines are offered:

Line length: 5 words per line
Lines per stanza: 4
Theme: Often suggestive of erotic love
Rhyme scheme: couplets or unrhymed

© Hannah Gosselin

Our challenge for today is to write either a four-lined poem, following the Chinese forms described above, or to write a longer poem, in rhyming quatrains, using any of the variations mentioned.
I have also included the photographic talents of several of our Real Toads Members and Followers. Remember to acknowledge the name of the photographer on your blog, if you decide to use an image as inspiration for your poem.
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.

The Sunday Mini-Challenge

This weekend we move on from the three line construction to the four lines of a quatrain, stalwart of English poetry. The quatrain may be written in many variations of meter and rhyme, and may be part of the stanzaic frame of a longer poem, or a single poem. However, I would like us to look at the envelope quatrain for this challenge.

© Isadora Gruye

The "envelope" refers to the rhyme scheme: a b b a   c d d c   etc.. with rhyme b enveloped by rhyme a.
An envelope may also be a x x a with x unrhymed. Iambic tetrameter is the favoured meter for English verse.

© Margaret Bednar

I am going to be a little more specific for this challenge by focusing on the In Memoriam Quatrain, popularized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H.H.

library.sc.edu

The In Memoriam Stanza is:

• Narrative verse
• Written in any number of envelope quatrains
• Metered: iambic tetrameter

Here is an example from Tennyson:

Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!

I have not given much guidance when it comes to meter in past challenges, but let us scan a few lines here in an attempt to demystify the Iamb. The red syllables carry the stress, while the blue is unstressed in reading.

Something / it is / which thou / hast lost

Some plea / sure from / thine ear / ly years

  © Ellen Wilson

My thanks go to the members of Real Toads who so willingly share their photography with us each week. These pictures are the secondary part of the Mini-Challenge offered as inspiration for our poetry. Anyone who would like to select a picture and write either an "In Memoriam" poem in a maximum of 4 envelope quatrains, or in Free Verse, if preferred, is welcome to do so. Please remember to acknowledge the name of the photographer if you upload an image to your blog.

© Susie Clevenger

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.

The Sunday Mini-Challenge

© Ellen Wilson

A while ago, several of us tried the Sevenling form of poetry, but it has never been offered as a challenge on Real Toads.  The Sevenling is a poem in seven lines, invented about a decade ago by Roddy Lumsden, who accredits this poem by Anna Akhmatova as his inspiration:

He loved three things alone:
White peacocks, evensong,
Old maps of America.

He hated children crying,
And raspberry jam with his tea,
And womanish hysteria.

… And he married me.

The American Poetry Journal features the following article written by Lumsden, with a few "rules" of the form and examples of the end product.  I have extracted the basics for the purposes of our challenge today.

© Margaret Bednar

• This form is all about content, rather than syllable count and rhyme scheme, and the rule of three is strongly applied.
• The first three lines contain three connecting or contrasting statements, list of items, names or abstract elements.  
• These can be contained anywhere within the stanza structure.  
• This approach is then repeated in the second stanza as either a continuation of the previous idea, or to introduce new elements into the poem.  
• The final line should create impact through juxtaposition, punch-line, or plot summary techniques.  
• The layout is two stanzas of three lines each and a final stanza of one line. 
• The tone should be somewhat mysterious, giving the sense that only part of the story is being told. 
• There is conformity in the way a Sevenling is titled: Sevenling (First few words of line 1)

Lumsden is quoted (on APJ) as saying: "the rules are to be freely adapted to suit the poet - it's not a strict form."

© Mama Zen

I wrote a Sevenling in response to one of our previous Sunday Photo Challenges, which may be read HERE, and you are welcome to use any of the photos featured here today as inspiration for your Sevenling.  Alternatively, you may use one of the images as inspiration for a free verse poem. Please remember to give credit to the Real Toad members who have kindly shared their work with us.

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.

The Sunday Mini Challenge

Surprise, it is me, Ella posting the Sunday Mini Challenge. Today I would like you to time travel with me, to another era. Yes, I have been swimming in the attic again, with the dust motes.  This time I found a box of sepia photos tucked away in an old trunk. I love vintage photos. I love the look, the outfits, and the time worn color. I wonder what  their lives were like?!    On occasion, I  purchase photos and use them in my art work.  These are from my personal stash. 

Your challenge is  to adopt an ancestor and give him or her a voice.  Imagine what they lives were like, their struggles and their joy.   Who where they?  What was their day like?  What was their name?  Adopt an ancestor and give us clues, about their past.   Select a photo, that stirs an emotion in you.

Here are a few photos I purchased. If nothing speaks to you go to this web site and select one. If you select from this site or another one, be sure to link it to the owner.  :D

I look forward to kicking the dust around with you and see what memories are stirred. This reminds me, I need to make sure I write and date all my personal, family photos.  Do you date and write names on all of yours?   I know with online photos we have advantages, but I still enjoy holding a vintage photo and reliving a memory.  I can't wait to hear your voice behind these faded photos!

The Sunday Challenge ~ Featuring Ellen Wilson

This weekend will be spent in the company of the multi-talented Ellen Wilson, of Ella's Edge.  
Not only is Ellen a creative genius, she is also a multi-tasker, able to have many projects on the go at once, and I am so grateful that she added this feature to her "Things To Do" list.  

Self-Portrait of the Artist

Edgar Allen Poe said, “Poetry is the rhythmic creation of beauty.”
I discovered this truth, when I captured a mood in a photo.
Photography feels like an open window to the world.
I use light and shadows, instead of words to portray a moment, in time.

Heartword by Ella's Edge


Fragile parchment opened
Imprinted with lampblack ink
Timeless journey continues in a
Pressed rambling rose


Faded fragrance lingers with time’s passage
Boundless whispers of youth arrive
They dance over the gold leaves
Held intact by
Stitched Irish linen threads


Scattered moth wings and kisses
Lie waiting for hope’s promise
Tiny green shoots
Soon will erupt
In gray mattered soul


Bursting forth
Baby buds with notes of Narcissus’ beauty
Awaken
Spring’s eternal romance
With
Knowledge

Blossom

Ellen was given her first camera at the age of eleven, and is always consciously aware that photography means writing with light.

Web

Many of Ellen's images can be found by following this link to the Etsy On-Line Shop, but please do not select an image from that gallery which is more to your liking for this prompt, without asking permission from the artist.

Teatime

I have long been an admirer of Ellen's photography, and what strikes me most is her attention to detail.  I believe she sees with a poet's eye, and a poet's mind that is able to focus on the parts which make up the whole.  If you missed the Real Toads Interview with Ellen, it is well worth a read.

Fragile

Ellen has generously offered these beautiful photos for our poetic inspiration. She has also decided to make this a Giveaway Challenge, at her own discretion.
If you add an image to your post, please acknowledge the name of the artist.

Cotton

The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the creative process, so please do not link up old work which kind of fits the image. Members will only respond to poetry written specifically for this prompt: this is in the spirit of our Real Toads project to create opportunities for poets to be newly inspired.