Journey's End

Greetings, all! Grace here. You may have noticed the "format challenge" tag moving around a bit--I'm sorry to say this is my last format challenge article for now. I'm looking forward to having time to write and share poems and experiences with you more often, though!

I had planned to write you a very scholarly article on any number of things, but I thought, we so rarely go back and practice things that were novel once. So let us go back and try, try again. If you don't like that idea, feel free to Google "villanelle" and meet my nemesis.

You may choose any of the following, listed from most recent to least: renga (I suggest forming a group of at least three for easiest organization), tanka, fixed-form haiku, tanaga, aubade, a traditional Welsh combination, toddaid, cywydd llosgyrnog, awdl gywydd, triolet, rondeau or rondeau redoublé , rondelet, or roundel.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to have shared all of these forms with you, and now I'm looking forward to being a participant rather than a commenter!

Aside from that, I wanted to leave you with the beautiful renga that we have all created together. I've added the ageku and given it a title. I hope you all enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed watching it come together.

Had I the Words: a Real Toads renga.

Some claim April rain

brings the blossoms of May, but

trees here are hasty

like youth, ardor unrestrained,

eager for Spring's first sweet kiss.

Sakura blossoms

in the arms of Old Man Tree--

drops of moonlit milk.

Showgirls performing a dance

inspir'd by Moonlight's embrace,

their graceful waves in

a risqué spring ballet, legs

kick the silver sky,

stars wink at rainbow feathers

that tease with each fluttering.

My full heart flutters,

I become dancer and dance

under April's moon,

and a blossoming cherry

in the sweet, full warmth of May.

Still, you, resting far

north where snow still flies and melts,

await midnight summer.

Polar day does not circle

on cosmic calliope--

Pegasus gallops

to the music of the spheres

while star clusters spin,

the earth spins on its axis,

hums its music in B flat,

Spring pirouettes ice,

spun sugar and crystal shards,

across the cosmos.

Bright silver vessel, half moon

empties dawn into morning,

the night bids farewell.

Leaving a trail of stardust,

it flies on its way.

Restored to herself, the earth

resumes her orderly spin.

At a loss for words--

coherence has taken flight

on the wings of nerves--

I pluck the blossoming twig,

write the character for "love."

Verses contributed by Art Happens 365, Skylover, Ella, Laurie Kolp, Susie Clevenger, Other Mary, Kay (Alberta, Canada), Sunflower Shan, Jinksy, Caddoc Trellis, Margo Roby, Jules, Misky, The Happy Amateur, Sara McNulty, and Grace O'Malley, with some minor editing by Grace O. 

Individual verse credits can be found here.

Loosening Up

Greetings, everyone! Grace here. Thank you for being patient with my quietude last month. It was a treat to read your tanka, and this month, I'm pleased to bring you what might be my most ambitious challenge ever. But I'll need your help, every single one of you, to bring it to fruition.

I realize I told you to contact the person who posted before you if you planned to participate this month, but in the interim, I had a marvelous idea. The challenge for this month is a collaborative poem, and I had planned to pair you up in groups of four. Then I wondered, what would happen for the participants who came along for this challenge, but not the last one?

Luckily, our system lends itself beautifully to my improved idea!

This month, we're going to band together, everyone that comes by, and make an enormous renga. The renga is a long Japanese poem, a series of very short verses in an alternating pattern, built by the group. There are links and references scattered within the greater poem, and each verse is related without being repetitive.

There are rules on when and for how many verses flowers can be referenced, or the moon, among many other things, but we're going to start more simply.

Three or four people are the smallest group usually accepted for an ichiza, or renga group. The poem begins with a hokku, a verse of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. This might sound familiar--the last time we discussed it, we called it a haiku, its modern name. The second verse is two lines of 7 syllables each, turning the hokku into what looks like the tanka we covered last time. The third verse is another 5-7-5, the fourth another 7-7. This pattern continues until the planned length is reached. So, the beginning of the renga will end up looking like this:

1st person.
*****
*******
*****

2nd person.
*******
*******

3rd person.
*****
*******
*****

4th person.
*******
*******

And so on! Each verse also has certain rules. The hokku follows the same rules as the haiku we covered before; kigo, kireji, and syllable count. The hokku also generally references the season in which the renga is created.

The second verse is known as the waki, and generally, the person who helps to organize the gathering is asked to create it! I'm not going to enforce that in this case; I think we can save it for a more organized piece.

The last verse is known as the ageku, and particular care is taken to wrap up the themes and references for the entire poem.

Now, there are many more rules for each stanza, and most renga fall into formats or previously arranged lengths. Ordinarily I am, as you know, ALL FOR FORMAT. But this time, in honor of the spirit of atarashimi, or the "feeling of newness," I'm loosing the reins. Bashō described it as "refraining from stepping back," and in a renga, one is supposed to accept the change and enjoy the sometimes surprising verse choices that come from others. All I ask is that you are careful to follow the pattern, and let's find out where our renga takes us!

So this is what we are going to do: I will post the first stanza. The second person to link up will do the second, and so on, until the participants run out of steam. Then we will have a Real Toads renga for the ages! I hope that once we try this, we continue to make more and better renga. I also hope this inspires you to have fun, even with short verses.

Don't forget to leave a comment after linking so that the next person in line knows what number they are!

I'm so excited for this. I've been looking forward to it all month. Thank you for sharing in the creation of this unique piece of our community.

The Frog in His Fresh Waters

Greetings, all. Grace here. It has been one hell of a month between these challenges, and I'm always glad to have a refuge here in the Imaginary Garden. I thought I'd talk to you a bit about the tanka, continuing our previous discussion of the haiku. Tanka used to be known as "waka," which merely means "Japanese poem." You can see why that wasn't precisely sustainable. The gentleman Masaoka Shiki, whom I mentioned in our last chat, was responsible for renaming the waka to "tanka," or "short poem." He had quite the hand in traditional Japanese formats! He wanted Japanese poetry to be accessible to anyone, to be modernized and celebrated. It's thanks to him that we know about tanka today.

You may be noticing a similarity to a previous format, the tanaga. Luckily, the tanka is a little easier. A tanka is a simple poem of (usually) five lines. If you look at a tanka in English, you might notice that there is a haiku within. The two sections of the tanka are the kami-no-ku and the shimo-no-ku, or the upper phrase and the lower phrase. Instead of placing our cutting words and turning points in the upper phrase, as we would with a teikei haiku, we use the difference between the upper and lower phrases as our turning point.

The tanka is a very traditional format still used today, and, in the Heian period (794-1185 C.E.), they were used as formal interactions and exchanges between lovers. The exchange of extemporaneous poetry showed a quick wit and an excellent education, and women were known to choose assignations based upon the delicacy or competency of the offered verses. One of the greatest poets of this period, and one of my favorites, was the great Ono no Komachi. She was a lady in the Imperial court of the early Heian, and her waka, like this one, are still quoted and beloved today.

Although I come to you constantly
over the roads of dreams,
those nights of love
are not worth one waking glimpse of you.

Another great poet of the mid-Heian period was known as Izumi Shikibu. Her waka were usually intensely emotional and often spoke of love or passion. This one was translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani for their book The Ink Dark Moon, a celebration of Heian-era love poetry and the two women who created such a great lot of it.

Come quickly—as soon as
these blossoms open,
they fall.
This world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers.

It's a marvelous book, if you like these poems. I love it dearly. But if you're getting tired of love poems, fear not. The tanka is not always romantic in nature! This one, written in English by Dr. Hisashi Nakamura and quoted in his lecture "Japanese Women in Tanka Poetry," is full of imagery and something else...but we'll get to that.

Stifled by the air
Laden with the rusty dust
Of the passing years
The dead cranes in the shipyard
Idly dangle their cables.

The restrained and gorgeous emotion of this tanka exemplifies the "something else" that the Japanese name yugen. Yugen is a feeling both broad and deep, something that Dr. Nakamura refers to as "a subtle and profound atmosphere," and an "infinite tranquil space with lingering suggestiveness." Which is much more nicely put than I was able to state. The entire lecture is definitely worth reading, if you have any time left after making your way to the end of my lengthy challenge here.

You may be rolling your eyes at the screen and thinking, "But Grace, what does this all mean? Get it together!" So here we go: Tanka, for our purposes today, are written in five lines, with a syllable count of 5-7-5-7-7, and a clear division or turning point between the upper phrase and lower phrase. Try to reach for yugen. Think of the thousands of years of devotion this format has inspired, and do try to take it seriously.

Your challenge, this month, is to write me at least three tanka (no fours), on any subject, adhering strictly to the rules set out in the last paragraph. Additionally, after posting, check the name of the person who posted before you, and get in touch with them if you plan to participate in next month's challenge. The last step is just as important as your entry in the linky, so please don't forget! Whoever is brave enough to post first will be paired with the last poster, or with me if the numbers don't work out (I will not bite, honest).

I'm already looking forward to reading your lovely batch of tanka--it's one of my favorite forms and I hope it becomes one of yours!

Old Pond a Frog Leaps In

Ladies and gentlemen, we all knew this day was coming. Gird your loins! Return with your shields, or on them! ...Wait. Wrong empire. Let me start again.

Greetings! Grace here, this week to pull you by the sleeve and chatter excitedly about haiku like a mad old woman on public transit.

The teikei, or fixed-form, haiku is one of my most beloved formats. It is FULL OF RULES and completely hedged about by REGULATIONS...but, when you sneak in among its iron jaws and wicker joints, it can be thrilling, beautiful, and completely unforgettable.

These tiny jewels began their career as the introduction to collaborative poems called renga (you might want to remember that name). In this incarnation, they were known as hokku, and by the 17th century, they had become verses in their own right, renamed haiku by Masaoka Shiki, a man now regarded as one of the four great masters of the format. One of the others, of whom I am certain you have heard, is the great Bashō.

There are many excellent articles on the famous writers of my beloved format, so I'll let you poke around on your own. I don't want to wear you out before we even get to the rules!

The title of today's article is also the first part of a haiku by Bashō:

"古池や蛙飛込む水の音"
(ふるいけやかわずとびこむみずのおと)

The translation, by William J. Higginson, has been placed into three lines:

"old pond. . .
a frog leaps in
water's sound"

I stuck this example in to illustrate the different ways of presenting your haiku. In Japanese, they are presented in a single line, but in translation, they are generally in the more familiar three-line group. Please feel free to use either method!

Here we come to the meat of our challenge. In Japanese, the fixed-form haiku has precisely 17 on, or sound units. These are similar but not exactly like our syllables, and the source of our 5-7-5 rule. This is because each kana character (the simpler characters in parentheses above) corresponds to a single on.

You went back and counted, didn't you? I did!

So we have 17 syllables in three lines, in general, to work with, which should be simple. Yet then we move into the rules concerning the content of the verse! Each verse should contain a seasonal word and a cutting word, and attempt the juxtaposition of two images in a harmonious fashion (remember to breathe).

There are many lists of seasonally appropriate words/phrases, or kigo, including a supremely helpful one on Wikipedia. The main thing to remember here is that seasons are just as easily implied as stated flat out. For example, although I love to write about autumn, it gets boring to say, "The autumn wind," or, "The fall leaves." Besides, those are precious syllables I'm wasting! What about, "candy corn," "dying year," or even "red maples"?

Then we add in our cutting word, or kireji. Again, there is a list available from Wikipedia with examples from the Japanese here. There are multitudes of ways to attack the cutting word. It can be a word, a long pause, or a bit of punctuation that really calls out, "Here! This is the turning point in my verse!" Think of it like a volta, if you were writing a sonnet. The cutting word is the moment the trap snaps shut, the mood changes, or the shocking relationship of your two unrelated images is revealed!

Are you still with me? Phew.

The last person I spoke in-depth with about these tiny delights was the wonderful Shawnacy, and I gave her this example of punctuation as kireji:

A pumpkin alight,
then spotted with mildew black--
so, too, my feelings.

And the incredible Marian of runaway sentence. tells me she's been meddling with a group of mad haiku-writers in her spare time! These ladies may have a head start on you, but I know you will all rise to the occasion. You always do.

Honestly, this can be as difficult or as easy as your brain will allow it to be. Love the fixed-form haiku. Do not fear it. Look, you can even write about naps or snacks, if you like! Present it in a single line, or in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each...or:

Translators of Japanese poetry have noted that approximately 12 syllables in English are the same length as the traditional 17 on. So if you like, you can definitely play around (in a limited manner) with the format of even the teikei fixed-form haiku.

This month's challenge is extremely specific, and I appreciate you taking the time and effort to share your entries! So, finally, here is your mission: write a set of haiku. They don't have to be related to each other, but they don't have to be unrelated either, if you'd like to have some underlying thread. Be sure that you adhere to the rules of the fixed-form haiku, and please adjust your sets to be either 3 or 5 verses. Fours, in Japanese tradition, are extremely unlucky!

Please, please email me if you have any questions at all about this format. I could quite seriously talk about haiku for weeks on end, but I promise to contain myself. As always, link up at the bottom, and leave a comment when you're ready. I can't wait to see what you do this month!

Tuloy po kayo.

Greetings, all--Grace here. I have been thinking all month about our next format challenge, and I think you'll enjoy it. This time, we're going to try our hands at the tanaga.

A tanaga is a short poem originating from the Philippines. It is similar in nature to the Japanese short forms of haiku or tanka. Most tanagas were passed down orally. They are claimed to be one of the oldest form of poetry in the Philippines.

Poetry Magnum Opus states that the tanaga is "emotionally charged and asks a question that begs an answer." While I couldn't find much supporting information for that statement, it drew me in instantly. Most of my sources also claim it's nearly a dying art form, and that the Cultural Center of the Philippines and National Commission of the Arts are hoping to revive it. Let's help out, shall we?

We'll be working with a "modern" tanaga; historical ones are written in Tagalog or other Filipino dialects, and I fear that is currently beyond my rudimentary ability.

Traditionally, the tanaga was presented without a title. It was expected to speak for itself. You can follow this prescription or add a title, as you like.

A tanaga is a short poem of four lines, each line seven syllables with a single rhyme. Today, other rhyme schemes are used, including freestyle rhyme, but for the purpose of this exercise, let's try to stick with couplets.

So, here's our form:

XXXXXXA
XXXXXXA
XXXXXXB
XXXXXXB

Looks pretty easy, right? Well, the other reasons I picked the tanaga are its extreme reliance on metaphor, and a sentence from its Wikipedia article:

Poets test their skills at rhyme, meter and metaphor through the tanaga, not only because is it rhymed and measured, but also it exacts skillful use of words to create a puzzle that demands some kind of an answer.

How perfect is that for our format challenge?

Most examples available on the internet have been written in Tagalog, but I did manage to find one on Buhayin ang Tanaga, a blog curated by Jardine Davies. It exists to bring this much-neglected form into the spotlight it deserves.

This tongue-in-cheek example comes from Ergoe Tinio:

I am Ani Skywalker,
With one-handed lightsaber.
Yes, Luke, I am your father.
Billie Jean's not my lover.

While I realize that one answers no questions or utilizes much metaphor, it made me smile. So I had to use it.

When used as stanzas of a longer piece, the form becomes known as an ambahan. More information on these fascinating little poems can be found at EManilaPoetry, and a little reading on the basic themes of the ambahan (so, too, the tanaga) at Indigenous Portal.

I look forward to reading your versions of this traditional format. And if you fall in love with the tanaga, be sure to submit to Buhayin ang Tanaga or a similar site as well! No poetic format should be allowed to vanish from our vocabularies.

"Your shadow at morning striding behind you..."

Hello, everyone! Grace here. It's been a busy few weeks for me, but I've been thinking about aubades. An aubade is a morning song of parting, and it's a partner to the serenade, which is sung in the evening. The aubade is one of my favorite things to write and read, so I have two brilliant examples for you today. They are well known, even being linked in the aubade's Wikipedia entry, and definitely deserve the attention.

Our first example is by Phillip Larkin, and it's rather long, so I'll link rather than transcribe this time.

You'll notice most poets opt to title their pieces simply "Aubade", which makes for a rather repetitive listing. Regardless, our next example comes from the fascinating Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, translated from the Gaeilge by Michael Longley. The original can be found--and heard!--here.

It's all the same to morning what it dawns on--
On the bickering of jackdaws in leafy trees;
On that dandy from the wetlands, the green mallard's
Stylish glissando among reeds; on the moorhen
Whose white petticoat flickers around the boghole;
On the oystercatcher on tiptoe at low tide.

It's all the same to the sun what it rises on--
On the windows in houses in Georgian squares;
On bees swarming to blitz suburban gardens;
On young couples yawning in unison before
They do it again; on dew like sweat or tears
On lilies and roses; on your bare shoulders.

But it isn't all the same to us that night-time
Runs out; that we must make do with today's
Happenings, and stoop and somehow glue together
The silly little shards of our lives, so that
Our children can drink water from broken bowls,
Not from cupped hands. It isn't the same at all.

This is honestly one of my favorite poems ever, and I hope it speaks to you just a little in the way it speaks to me.

Some aubades are bittersweet, some are yearning, and others are mere proddings to awake. They're written by musicians, even today, rock and pop artists carrying on a tradition popularized by troubadours centuries ago. Aubades have been written in every style, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood's "Morning in the Burned House".

When Marian and I began this format challenge last summer, we practiced aubades as well. Hers, traditionally titled "aubade", can be found here; mine, "Ogun et Erzulie", here. Even more examples can be found on poets.org, including one by Carl Phillips and one by Thomas Merton.

I've seen rhyme used to great effect, but there is no set rhyme or meter to this form, a nice change from our usual challenge. I'm looking forward to reading your entries all month, and into the next year. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or suggestions, or catch me on Twitter if you're so inclined!

Diolch yn fawr, beirdd!

Which means, "thank you, poets!"  I have enjoyed wrestling with Welsh formats.  I hope you have, too.  Your assignment this time is short and sweet.  Simply (or not so simply) assemble me an epic or long piece fit for a Bard, utilizing at least two of the forms we have used in our short trip into the Welsh mountains.

Those, you might recall, were the awdl gywydd, the cywydd llosgyrnog, and the toddaid. If you are feeling adventurous, you can also utilize a fourth style, the englyn milwr (a simple stanza of three seven syllable lines, all rhyming).

One very simple way to do this would be to write a few verses with one of the cywydds (awdl gywydd or cywydd llosgyrnog) and append a toddaid couplet, something like a volta in a strict sonnet, a change of thought or an abrupt stop. You could also use one of the forms as a lyrical base, with another format as a sort of chorus. The style is up to you, just be sure to use two or more of the forms presented here!

Thank you all so much for your hard work with these formats. Remember, there are twenty-four in all, so if you run across one you like later, let me know. Perhaps it will be a fun challenge at another time!

Please link up when you have a moment. I will return in four weeks with a new challenge! Feel free to email me or find me on Twitter if you have any suggestions for our next direction.

I Gymryd Anadl

Hello, all, and welcome to the calm eye of the hurricane!  Diolch yn fawr for putting up with my scatterbrained scheduling, too.  This week, I thought I'd give you a little breather in the form of our third building block, the Toddaid, a member of the awdl category.

A toddaid is a couplet of uneven length, often written in quatrain form.  It has an interlaced rhyme like our other formats, but this time the rhyme is found in the middle of both lines!  If the toddaid is extended into four lines, there is also an end rhyme formed by lines two and four.  Line one is ten syllables and line two contains only nine.  Here is one way to write it out:

xxxxA--xxx
xxxA--xxx

And in quatrain form:

xxxxA--xxx
xxxA--xxB
xxxxC--xxx
xxxC--xxB 

Thankfully, it looks a little easier written out this way.  This format is often written in conjunction with other meters, but can stand alone as well!  Once again, I found myself poking through the archives at Radical Druid, and found this example within a longer poem, "O Bard, Come Sing":

For we must not hide from the coming day,
locked away, far from the living earth;
The whole of humanity must be joined,
and each value the coin of rebirth.

He's made the decision to use the interlacing rhyme at the end of lines one and three, joining the stanza into a true quatrain.  This is a really (comparatively) flexible format to work with!

This week I'm going to leave this short and sweet, since I botched the scheduling.  I hope you enjoy the little break from the very strict format, because we'll head back into them next time.  I'm looking forward to reading your versions of the toddaid, whether in one couplet or several!

If you've been drawn into the thorny world of Welsh formats because of these challenges, well, you may have an inkling of where we are headed.  Rest assured that I am right behind you!

Da iawn!

Welcome back, everyone.  Grace here.  Last time we ventured into the twenty-four official formats of medieval Welsh poetry.  No, it wasn't a dream (or a nightmare).  This week, we'll continue our exploration with the Cywydd Llosgyrnog.

A second building block in the "cywydd" meter, this format is written using sestets.  The poem itself can be of any number of stanzas, but each stanza has a strict meter, containing two eight-syllable couplets and two interlacing rhymes on the third and sixth lines.  The third and sixth lines also rhyme with one another.  It's not as terrible as it sounds, now that we've attempted the awdl gywydd!

There are very few examples available on the internet, and most books I've found show the verses in the original Welsh.  So I had to call in a favor or two.  This one, from Marian, is called "poetic license":

hot tears flow as a rushing stream.
she jerks like waking from a dream,
glossy gleamed eyes, wet with rage,
turn hard against who waits for her
in chapter six. her muse can't lure
fraught demon purrs from each page.

Here, we note that the meter and rhyme are extremely similar to our previous work, with an extra couple of lines:

*******A
*******A
**a***B
*******C
*******C
**c***B

My first attempt is called "apothecary":

The scent of rain and stormy air.
A Pumpkin King's candle-lit stare.
Candy corn, preserved, bottled
with hot toddy and some cut grass,
one blazing leaf stuffed in the glass.
Then age the label mottled,

and on first glance, it looks right.  However, I've moved my internal rhyme to the fourth line and dropped the second link entirely.  For a better example, here is a rough-drafted verse of a longer poem I'm making now, with the cross-rhymes italicized:

Questions answered, or denied flat,
all cards are laid out on the mat.
We stand at a bound'ry thin.
Tonight, the night wins over all.
The dimming waltz awaits our call.
With our fall, the end begins.

The cross-rhyme, or interlaced rhyme, can again shuffle between the third, fourth, and fifth syllables.  It may look difficult, but it's more like putting together a puzzle than anything else, especially with the flexibility of the interlaced rhyme.  Just be sure to put it in the correct place, unlike my first attempt!

Our final example comes from Jan Haag's "The Desolation Poems: Poetry Forms Used in English".  It doesn't adhere strictly to the meter, but I enjoyed reading her interpretation.  It is named, simply, "Cywydd Llosgyrnog".

The rain, the black night, the siren
are not claimed by morning's garden,
nor is the pen on its trips --
gliding so smoothly within each
phrase, sour-powered and inky
-- into pale parse-hidden pips.

Another explanation of the cywydd llosgyrnog can be found at Poetry Magnum Opus, including a pronunciation.  I'm excited to read what you link up for this challenge!

Next time we'll touch down on one of the easiest (I promise!) building blocks in Welsh traditional meters, so please do your best, and stay tuned.

Croeso i Gymru!

Hello, everyone!  Grace here.  I promised you we'd step away from those French formats, so we're heading north to the lovely and tricky regions of Wales. We'll be spending some time here, much like our little French leave of the previous challenges, so go ahead and get settled in.

There are twenty-four traditional poetic formats attributed to Welsh literature, and there were even more before our current list was compiled in the Late Middle Ages, when some formats were omitted. Bardic tradition claims that the great court poets began to die out when Welsh knights began to move into the English court, as the poets depended upon the wealthy knights' patronage. One such gentleman, known as Grufydd Phylip of Ardudwy, was said to be the last professional poet, and on his death in 1666, the art was left to amateurs. Let's revive some traditions this week as we discuss our first format, the Awdl Gywydd.

An awdl ("owdl") is a long-format poem similar to the ode, and the awdl gywydd ("owdl gow-widd")  is a short piece in the "cywydd" category of meters, which were purportedly the most popular of the formats. This basic stanza is an excellent format with which to get warmed up for a longer piece. It's another building block, and can be written to any length. Each stanza is made up of seven-syllable quatrains and an interlaced rhyme scheme, with the second and fourth lines making a perfect rhyme. Sound a little complicated? Here's a four-stanza example from John Litzenberg of Radical Druid, named "On Her Sleeping Form". It has one minor variation--see if you can spot it!

She’s sleeping there on the chaise,
on her face a gentle look;
dreaming no doubt of flowers,
and quiet hours with a book. 

Her eyes are closed, her heart eased,
and I am pleased that she rests;
May her dreams be sweet and kind,
and may she find peaceful hours. 

When she wakes in the morning
may the day bring her gladness
filled with laughter and sunshine
and a decline in sadness. 

I listen to her soft snore,
wanting no more than her joy;
she fills where I am nothing,
and brings happiness sublime.

First we see each line is seven syllables. Next, note that there is a rhyme at the midpoint of the second and fourth lines, as well as the perfect rhyme at the end. This interlaced rhyme can be a half-rhyme, consonance, or assonance, and can even be moved around, placing it in the third, fourth, or fifth syllable of each of those lines.

******A
**a***B
******C
**c***B

For brevity's sake, I have placed the example midpoint rhyme on the third syllable. You are free to place it in the same general area or move it around a bit! The strictest part of this exercise, for me, is to keep each line at seven syllables.

While scouring the net for some examples of this format, I ran across a gentleman named Gary Kent Spain, who made a list of awdl gywyddau under the name "venicebard" for AllPoetry.com. This one stood out as my clear favorite, and it is titled "Ode to Alexandria (Awdl Gywydd)":

Alexandria, what tones
and intense groans you evoke
from man’s memory, proud nest
of the best that ancients spoke 

concerning science, the gods,
how fate plods: what you preserved
of the past’s glory that now
into the sand’s brow has swerved, 

lost for all time! Had you stood,
Serapeum, would our schools
not still be teaching the scrolls
that lined your walls? would not fools 

who thought the ancient world lacked
any ear for fact be seen
for the emptiness they are?
But your star has lost its sheen— 

quite literally, since sight
no more sees light from the isle
Pharos with its beacon tall
whose beam’s call announced with style 

that here stood Ptolemy’s gem,
pliant stem of writing’s bloom,
swaying with those winds of thought
it had wrought to rend man’s gloom.

Please check the links for several more of his entries!

Wales has an intriguing and ancient literary tradition, full of bards and poet's guilds, even the first recorded literary work from a Northern European woman! They're also known for some of the most strict formats in existence. I look forward to exploring these with you, because I believe that the merit in these exercises grows with the difficulty of the attempt.

For a much more concise and pleasingly written summary of Welsh poetic format, visit Poetry Magnum Opus.

Now, with this sort of inspiration, what are you going to link up this week?

Taking a Break

Greetings, all!  Grace here.  I did say we were finished with the rondeau family for now, but as I was looking through formats the triolet caught my eye.  It's another medieval French form, and I swear, next post we will move on either south or east...but today, we'll discuss the triolet.

The triolet is a short poem of eight lines, utilizing the repetition and rhyme we remember from our work with the rondeau family.  The first line again becomes our rentrement, and the last couplet is a repetition of the first, seen here in a triolet by A.E. Stallings, "Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther":

Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
the booze and the neon and Saturday night,
the swaying in darkness, the lovers like spoons?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes?
Does he hum them to while away sad afternoons
and the long, lonesome Sundays?  Or sing them for spite?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
the booze and the neon and Saturday night?

So we've got a form where the first, fourth, and seventh lines repeat, as well as the initial and final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of

A (rentrement)
B
a
R
a
b
R
B,

but at least it's only one stanza!  With this form, we're looking for a refrain that fits naturally into the message of the poem, but one that can also subtly alter in meaning as it travels through the form.  Thomas Hardy wrote several triolets and was extremely skilled at the slow altering of refrains, as in the second half of "The Coquette, and After":

At last one pays the penalty -
The woman--women always do.
My farce, I found, was tragedy
at last!--One pays the penalty
With interest when one, fancy-free,
learns love, learns shame...Of sinners two
at last ONE pays the penalty -
The woman--women always do! 

Most triolets were written in iambic tetrameter, but this is, thankfully, no hard and fast rule.

The triolet has been revived a few times since the 13th century; they were later composed in English by a former Benedictine monk said to have used them in his devotions, and were reintroduced again to English-speakers by Robert Bridges, who popularized the form at the end of the 19th century.  One of my favorite examples of the triolet comes from Sara Teasdale, around 1911:

Dead leaves upon the stream
and dead leaves on the air--
all of my lost hopes seem
dead leaves upon the stream;
I watch them in a dream,
going I know not where,
dead leaves upon the stream
and dead leaves on the air.

Ready?  Good.  This week's challenge can be regarded as a little breather, while I finish my notes for a more complex adventure.  I can't wait to see what you link up this week.

X Marks the Spot

Hello, everyone!  Grace here. Now that we are all warmed up with last week's rondelet, let us venture into the murky waters of the Rondeau.  There are several other members of the rondeau family I've skipped over, all characterized by that tricky rentrement, and all worthy of a little of your attention.   However, in the interest of not bludgeoning out our brains on these devious French forms, we'll head straight into the head of the family.

Most of you, I'm sure, are already familiar with at least one famous rondeau, even if you aren't sure about the form.  This one is so famous, actually, that I'm not even going to transcribe it here--it's "In Flanders Fields", by John McCrae.  Even before I began to look more closely at the stricter French forms, I had that one memorized thanks to Margaret Atwood's "Poppies: Three Variations", a short story in her collection Good Bones and Simple Murders.

Another rondeau I particularly enjoy is also often cited as a great example of the form, titled "We Wear the Mask", by Paul Laurence Dunbar, a truly amazing poet of the late 19th century, and the first African-American to gain notoriety as a poet.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties

Why should the world be over-wise
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see up, while
We wear the mask

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

With this perfect example of the form, we see the meter is strict: thirteen lines of eight syllables and two refrains, each of four syllables.  The easiest parts of this format are its rhyme scheme and the limit of three stanzas.

The rhyme is deceptively simple, like its smaller sibling the rondelet:

A (the first half of which becomes our rentrement/refrain)
A
B
B
A 

A
A
B
R 

A
A
B
B
A
R

The trickiest part is to pick a refrain that will expand to fill the entire scope of your poem.  It can change meanings or punctuation, but the first half of that first line must summon all the feeling succinctly.  The 15th century writers of these rondeaux dealt with this problem in a novel (for the time) manner; instead of writing these lovely and complex poems about lofty subjects, they began to explore darker themes.  Francois Villon wrote one named "Death I Appeal" in a strikingly different format:

Death I appeal your harshness
Having robbed me of my mistress
You remain unsatisfied
Waiting for me to languish too
Since then I've had no strength or vigor
But in her life how did she offend you?
Death etc. 

We were two, we had but one heart
Since it is dead, I must die
Yes or live without life
As images do, by heart
Death etc.

I am not encouraging you to truncate your refrain in such a sharp manner, as I feel it robs this form of the slow ramping-up that makes it so effective.  Yet it was once a common practice to amend the rules of the rondeau to suit the poet.  We seem to be in good company, not too unyielding, when we stretch the form a bit.

This will be it for our little trip through the stanzas of the rondeau family!  I hope you've enjoyed wrestling with this form as much as I have.   If you want to read up on the other members of the rondeau family, a great resource that I just found yesterday is The Rondeau Roundup.  I know I'll be checking in there to learn even more about these devils.

In fact, for extra credit, there is an even more vicious little form called the "rondeau redoublé ".  If you accomplish that one, you will be a far more flexible poet than I!  Perhaps someday we will double back to it along our challenge path.

As always, please link up and leave a comment so that I may selfishly enjoy the fruits of your labors!  And thank you for your enthusiastic participation these last few weeks.  It's been wonderful to watch you all take one form and shape it in so many varied ways.

Shortening the Sails

Hello again! Grace here, glad to be back for the second round of our poetry format challenge. This week, we'll discuss the Rondelet. This is another French form, consisting of just one stanza. This form is a compressed version of the format we will tackle next time. Think of it as a building block!

The forms we have been enjoying are all of the Rondeau family, defined by the rentrement. The rentrement, as we saw in the last post's roundel, is an opening phrase or line that becomes a refrain. A French poet of the 19th century, Theodore de Banville, said of the rentrement, "It is at once the subject and its means of expression."

In "The Literary World", published in 1889, Charles Henry Luders gave us this quick lesson in the "Rondelet":

A RONDELET
Is just seven verses rhymed on two.
A rondelet
Is an old jewel quaintly set
In poesy--a drop of dew
Caught in a roseleaf. Lo! For you,
A rondelet.

While each poem in the rondeau family is derived from a dance round set to music, the rondelet is also a short, disciplined format. There are a mere seven lines. A rondelet composed in French will be syllabic, counting 4-8-4-8-8-8-4. When written in English, the syllable count is often disregarded, and tends to be iambic. You are free to use the strict syllable count or choose another! While the strictness of the French-style meter helps to bring a spare beauty to your verse, a looser English-style meter can give you a little room to play around with this form. However, there must be meter and flow even if you choose a looser interpretation of the rules. "Rondelet", above, hews very close to the French syllable count, but not exactly, and its meter and flow are similar to what we are aiming for, here. Try reading your piece out loud to be sure it doesn't sound choppy.

This format is also rhymed, and the scheme ends up looking like this:

A (Refrain)
B
R
A
B
B
R

The first line, our rentrement, becomes the third and the seventh line as well.

A fun way to approach the rondelet is to begin it like a traditional haiku. Pick two clear images and try to reconcile them. Be sure to take your time in selecting the perfect descriptions, and don't settle for something easy or trite. It's not difficult to turn a small piece like this into doggerel. It's like walking a tightrope: you have to find a balance, adhering to the format yet allowing your own voice to shape it. Don't be afraid to modify the strictest rules as needed, while treating them with respect.

I couldn't find any online, readily available versions of the rondelet, none I truly liked, so I don't have an example to post for you in the article. I will of course link up along with runaway sentence. at the bottom when my version is posted, and look forward to reading your versions of this tricky, yet rewarding, little form.

Burned Tongues and Unfamiliar Waters

Hello, everyone!  My name is Grace O'Malley, and I've been working my way through any strict form of poetry I could find over the last few months.  It began as a small thing to put on my writing-exercise blog, but after one or two, Marian, who writes at runaway sentence., began to chime in with her contributions, and a format challenge was born!  

Over the last three or four weeks, we've been working our way through some pretty rough and thorny undergrowth.  We stick with the stricter forms because we're both used to smaller or freer formats, and I have found that through these exercises, I have begun to reconnect with some of the things I loved about poetry when I first began to write.  For our first format challenge here at Real Toads, we are going to repeat a form we did a few weeks ago.  We loved it so much, it was the first idea we had when Kerry offered us a platform on which to share the challenge!  

So, welcome!  This week, we'll discuss the Roundel.

The roundel was developed by Algernon Swinburne as a variation of the rondeau.  It's a short poem with refrains, a repeating rhyme scheme, and a constant syllable-count. It has eleven lines, generally in three stanzas.  There are many examples of the roundel to be found on the internet, if you search carefully, including famous ones by Dorothy Parker and Geoffrey Chaucer!  One of my favorites is by Sara Teasdale, simply titled, "Roundel".

"If he could know my songs are all for him,
At silver dawn or in the evening glow,
Would he not smile and think it but a whim,
If he could know?

Or would his heart rejoice and overflow,
As happy brooks that break their icy rim
When April's horns along the hillsides blow?

I may not speak til Eros' torch is dim,
The god is bitter and will have it so;
And yet to-night our fate would seem less grim
If he could know."

In this example, we see the rhyme scheme:

A
B
A
R(efrain)

B
A
B

A
B
A
R ,

with the refrain coming from the beginning of the first line.  Now, in my first attempt at the roundel, "Gray Lady", I missed this rule!  I succeeded in the rhyme scheme and refrains, maybe even in the rhythm, but failed to make my refrain the first part of the first line:

"This hunger always takes me unaware,
pulling me along on reluctant feet.
The wind tangles her fingers in my hair
as I head out to sea.

I conquer navies though I command no fleet,
my strange artilleries comprised of simple air.
Still, your lover prays we might never meet.

If some lonely night, you see me there?
If you're entranced by music sweet?
Shut up your ears, whatever else you dare,
as I head out to sea."

However, you cannot let the form dictate the poem, so, while trying to adhere to the strictness of the format is something we hope you'll do?  Minor variations are just fine.  Make the poem suit your voice, as Marian has in her first attempt, "hang my moon".

"if all the time i spent admiring you
broke down, shined out by sneak of my own light
revealing second place?  that would not do.
still, hang the moon you might.

the beacon of your realness in my sight
no longer hides beneath what is not true.
you know they say two wrongs don't make a right

so we'll make good on promises in lieu
of running, or of fear of darkest night.
i just know like the stars bright over you
yes, you hang my moon all right."

Her distinct voice permeates the form, and though she also chooses to eschew the forced refrain, she utilizes a killer writing technique called "burnt tongue".

This is a lesson I learned from Chuck Palahniuk, by way of his memories of writing workshops with Tom Spanbauer.  It's a method of putting words together in an unusual way, perhaps even "wrongly", twisting it just a touch, which makes you stop, pay attention, and maybe even read the poem out loud, as poetry ought to be read.

For more information on the roundel, Wikipedia's article here is a little scant, but servicable;  and if you are interested in more techniques of "Dangerous Writing" as put forward by Tom Spanbauer, Palahniuk wrote an essay here explaining them.  Also, many thanks again to Kerry for allowing us to reach a wider audience with our little challenge.

Please take the time this week to write yourself a roundel, and see if you can unlock its music.  We'd love to read your versions of this lovely form, so please link up, and leave a comment, when you've finished!