Puente is a rewarding form created by James Rasmusson. The word puente means bridge in Spanish, and--naturally--this lovely form features a bridge. It is a simple idea:
Three stanzas
First and third stanzas have equal number of lines (your choice how many)
Middle bridge stanza is one line, encloses in dashes or tildes
Middle bridge stanza serves as last line for first stanza and first line for last stanza
Kerry first introduced the puente in the garden back in 2011: BRIDGING THE GAP
Here is another helpful article from Folded Word: PUENTE
Here is an example I wrote in response to Kerry’s prompt, called “Quabbin Dream,” about my grandmother:
Woods like fiery calico patchwork across the lake-- another season arrives with its bluster, its demands stitched in crimson, brittle-hearted like dry leaves.
-- you are still gone --
Picture my children greeting you-- smiles preserved in a weathered frame, dancing like leaves in an autumn wind, but all I have is your words stitched in crimson into a fiery heart.
(c) Marian Kent
Quabbin Reservoir
Ready? Let’s try it! And have a wonderful weekend, friends.
Cherita builds on haiku and tanka, and was inspired by the six-word story, which was inspired by Hemingway, so hey, there is a rich history here. You remember Hemingway’s:
For sale, baby shoes, never worn
Cherita is a six-line poem in three stanzas. First stanza is one line, second stanza two lines, third stanza three lines. Line length is up to you. The idea is to write a short story in six lines.
I tried it out and offer this simple tale for an example:
I should rake leaves
but I decide to do something else
when thinking about leaves and wind and justice
photo and cherita poem above by Marian Kent
I wonder if we might try this and even include our handwritten/notebook versions as Kerry inspired us to share a couple weeks back! If you like, no obligation, but it might be a pretty form to share that way. Have fun!
Hello, Toads! October being upon us, the first month of the last quarter of the calendar year. Which really has not much to do with the short poetry form I’m proposing that we try today, the TRITINA.
Tritina is the more compact step-sister of sestina and villanelle, two forms that I (you?) find difficult! But somehow in this shorter version it seems manageable. Could be I’m wrong, but let’s try anyway. Tritina was invented by the American poet Marie Ponsot, who says about strict poetry forms:
“The forms create an almost bodily pleasure in the poet. What you’re doing is trying to discover. They are not restrictive. They pull things out of you. They help you remember.”
I love this and feel the same--but it’s so good to be reminded as I’ve been a bit distant from my poems and my remembering lately.
So the rules of tritina are as follows. It is a ten-line poem with three tercets and a final line, featuring three repeating, non-rhyming line-end words, like this:
1-2-3
3-1-2
2-3-1
The final line contains all 3 words as 1-2-3
The tritina does not have a required meter, but it is generally thought that tritina should have a consistent meter or rhythm throughout to emphasize the repetition and musical-refrain quality of the verse. The single end line is a conclusion, so tritina can be similar to a sonnet in that a turn can happen between lines 9 and 10.
Happy weekend, friends! Today, let’s try writing a NONET. A nonet is defined as a combination of nine instruments or voices, or a musical composition for such a combination. The word comes from Italian nonetto or nono--nine. In poetry, a nonet is a nine-line poem in which the first line contains nine syllables, the next line 8, and so on until the final one-syllable line. No rhyme required, and no particular topic or subject. You can also write a second stanza in reverse, 1-9 syllables, for a kind of opposite or mirror. I thought of nonet because of its similarity to the fibonacci that Kerry had us playing with last weekend--love it!--but I have never tried a nonet. Have you? Also could not find any good examples of a nonet poem online, other than this one by Robert Lee Brewer at Writer’s Digest. So let’s do something about that. Hey, hey, we like the nonet! 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1… and, go!
Friends! Poets! Both! Time for playing with short forms. Let’s try the CAVATINA. Just recently came across this older Italian form, but to me, it seems like a sonnet variation--kinda? It features rhyme and syllable counting that together create a nice rhythm, and a couplet at the end. Here are the rules:
Ten-syllable non-rhyming line,
Alternating with a four-syllable rhyming line,
Repeated at least three times,
Ending with a ten-syllable line couplet.
Found this cute example online:
Zilch Muse by Ryter Roethicle It's not the night or the music, it's me My muse has gone Too much work, too much pressure is enough She has withdrawn I sit here my glass of port as company Ideas, I have none My notes zilch, there's no inspiration there All ideas blown So I sit here drinking a lovely port No light has shone Another sip, appreciating God’s gift to me I must postpone No worldly wisdom to impart to you This time my foot is in some other's shoe.
Here is an article with many more examples: CAVATINA
Friends! This weekend in the Garden, let’s try a short form that’s less fussy and more adorable. It’s called the TRICUBE and the rules are super-simple: Each line contains three syllables, Each stanza contains three lines, and Each poem contains three stanzas.
That’s it! Except to say that the fun, mathematical tricube was created by Phillip Larrea.
Let’s try it. Three… two… one… Go!
Hello, dear friends! Let’s try a simple and elegant form this weekend that may allow us to focus on balance. I could use some more balance in my life, how about you? Our form today is the TETRACTYS.
Toads! Let’s have some fun today. Let’s write palindrome poems! LOL.
We all know that a palindrome is a word or phrase that is the same when read forward or backward. Like WOW or CIVIC or LOL or HANNAH. (Hi, Hannah!) Heaven (Grace) introduced the palindrome in the Garden a few years back, HERE. It’s the same idea, except that a palindrome poem can read forward and backward word by word or line by line. Here’s a quick example that I wrote for Grace’s challenge, called “Minor Key Riots”:
Wayward night, this feeling like ripe dahlias-- Rioting, escaping the laden shrill étude that is Life-- Is that étude shrill, laden, the escaping, rioting? Dahlias, ripe like feeling this night-- Wayward.
Since then, I’ve discovered the brilliant palindrome skills of smarty-pants comedian Demetri Martin, offered to you today for inspiration:
Dammit I'm mad. Evil is a deed as I live. God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt. To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss. Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help? Man, it is hot. I'm in it. I tell. I am not a devil. I level "Mad Dog". Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp, In my halo of a mired rum tin. I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin. Is evil in a clam? In a trap? No. It is open. On it I was stuck. Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web. Be still if I fill its ebb. Ew, a spider… eh? We sleep. Oh no! Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position. Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name. Both, one… my names are in it. Murder? I'm a fool. A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash, A Goddam level I lived at. On mail let it in. I'm it. Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet! A loss it is alas (sip). I'd assign it a name. Name not one bottle minus an ode by me: "Sir, I deliver. I'm a dog" Evil is a deed as I live. Dammit I'm mad.
Wikipedia says Martin wrote this poem about alcoholism for a fractal geometry class when he was an undergraduate at Yale. Showoff! :) And Martin wrote a 500-word palindrome poem published in his first book, This Is a Book. The poem is HERE.
Amazing!! Okay, Toads--have at it, palindromes! Like a snake head eating the head on the opposite side (according to They Might Be Giants).
I’m writing this prompt in the early morning as our town wakes up under a blanket of fresh snow. Soon I’ll be out driving in it, headed to work. Are we done with this yet? Let’s travel somewhere else for a spell.
For our weekend fussy form challenge, let’s head to the Phillippines and try the TANAGA.
With apologies and love to you-know-you, the tanaga is similar to haiku and tanka, being a compact quatrain with four seven-syllable lines. The tanaga can be written in various rhyme schemes, but traditionally all four lines rhyme, like aaaa bbbb cccc, and so on:
X X X X X X A X X X X X X A X X X X X X A X X X X X X A
Or you can try other rhyme variations, like aabb ccdd, or abba cddc.
A tanaga poem can stand on its own four lines, or the verses can be strung together for a longer poem. Usually titles are not used with tanaga poems.
The key to tanaga is that it is a witty poem, emotionally charged or heavy on metaphor, sometimes begging a question that demands an answer.
For a longer/better explanation, Pirate Grace O’Malley introduced the tanaga in the Garden some years ago, here: TULOY PO KAYO
For a quick example, here is one of my attempts from that time:
The golden arches beckon. Hungry travelers reckon, "Just once." No condemnation, I understand temptation.
Okay, let’s try it. Have fun with this clever form, and please feel free to link up one or many tries as your rhyming heart desires. Enjoy!
The National Flower of the Philippines: Sweet & Fragrant Sampaguita
Hello
Toads! For our little form challenge today, let’s try invoking the rule of
three in a form that allows for poems that are short or longer--the TERZA RIMA.
We’ve played with three in the Garden plenty of times--think triolet or
sevenling--but I don’t think we’ve tackled this form directly. It also follows
nicely from the chained rhyme we worked on last time, so let’s dig in.
The
terza rima has a long pedigree, having been created by Dante for The Divine
Comedy, but it is really quite simple in concept. Perhaps that is why it is so
long-lasting. It is a series of interlocking three-line stanzas in which the
end rhyme in the second line provides the rhyme for the first and third lines
of the next, like this: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C and so on, to your
heart’s content.
Another famous example of terza rima with which you may be familiar:
“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right I have been one acquainted with the night.
Usually
the terza rima is written in iambic pentameter, but this is not required. It is
suggested that the lines be the same length or syllable count, but again, not
imperative. There is no limit to the number of stanzas one might include in a
terza rima. One can write a terza rima sonnet as Robert Frost did above, like
this: A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D, E-E
Academy of American Poets has a longer article at poets.org about terza rima that may be interesting or helpful: ARTICLE
As a sweet-special and totally inspiring added bonus, I found audio of dearest Adrienne Rich reading her poem titled “Terza Rima,” which flies far afield from the form and, of course, amazes: AUDIO
And here is a review of Arts of the Possible, Adrienne Rich's collection in which this poem appears: REVIEW
Hello, dear Friends and happy weekend to
you! It is time for a form challenge. Today we will revisit a form introduced
in the Garden by Joy a few years ago and enjoyed by many: CHAINED RHYME.
I don’t really think this form counts as
fussy or little. But let’s do it anyway. The basic premise is that the last
syllable or word of each line is followed by a rhyme on the first word or
syllable of the next line. LIKE A CHAIN, get it? Hah.
It’s not really fussy or little because the
poem can be anything you want--long lines or short, many lines or just a few,
strict meter or no meter, whatever you like. Just those rhymes and the end and
start of your lines.
Joy’s earlier prompt is so amazing that I
am being lazy (and not redundant!) by linking to her description here, check it
out:
