Search This Blog

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Demi-Pantoum

This week's prompt is from Tad (with obsessive bullets by Victoria...)

Here's a variation on a popular form, created by poet Allison Joseph. She calls it the demi-pantoum.

It consists of:

  • 4-line stanzas, 
  • rhymed ABAB. 
  • The third line of one stanza becomes the first line of the next stanza, but that's the only repetition. So it has something of the feeling of a pantoum, but it's a little looser. 
  • The first line of the poem is used somewhere in the final stanza. 
So that's this week's challenge. Write a demi-pantoum.

If anyone needs an example, Tad will send one.

12 comments :

  1. I posted my poem for last week, finally, and wondered where Linda's was? Such a lovely prompt. Not sure if I can do anything this week, rather too complicated for li'l ol' me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's mine. Allison Joseph said that the first line should be used somewhere in the final stanza, but the form would dictate that it can only be used in the third line. So I did a little variation, and made the fourth stanza rhyme AAAA, so that the first line could also be the last line.

    NATURE AS SCULPTOR
    "A stone carving should emerge from the block with all the dignity and grace of the mountain from which the stone came." -- sculptor Harvey Fite

    The mountain carves itself with tools of time
    And wind, and ice, with avalanche and brook,
    Tectonic shifts that make it sink and climb,
    And hooves and beaks and bones that carve and crook--

    Tectonic shifts that make it sink and climb,
    Millennia to make a single mark
    In granite; sudden symmetries in lime,
    Fire ignited from a single spark

    Of granite; sudden symmetries in lime
    With jets of water forced in steaming spout;
    Layers of sediment like textured rhyme,
    Deep passageways and caves from inside out.

    Layers of sediment like textured rhyme,
    Rough granite; sudden symmetries in lime,
    Tectonic shifts that make it sink and climb:
    The mountain carves itself with tools of time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. this is awesome! strong images and beautifully written.

      Delete
    2. Yes, wow!Truly beautiful and beautifully done.

      Delete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The tree outside is bigger tonight
    than it's ever been before
    the moon shines much too bright
    when a stranger raps on my door.

    The moon shines much too bright
    as we dance across the floor
    my heart soared as it took flight
    wanting this and nothing more

    'til he whispered "I'm here to settle a score"
    the knife in my heart did burn and bite
    death waited for me - - did nothing more.
    I felt no panic or fright

    he had accomplished his given chore
    the tree outside is bigger tonight
    waves wash to the shore
    my soul is free and floats into the light.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. " don't fear the reaper " - blue oyster cult. too complicated and too many rules for me in this promt. i'll leave it to you guys and gals- love paul.

      Delete
    2. Interesting poem! YOu did a lovely job here.

      Delete
  5. oh lord I messed up the rhyming... sigh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  6. I really liked your inversion of the rhyme lines in the last stanza.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And thanks for being the only one to try it. Reading it over again, I love what you did with rhyme, and inverting the rhyme in the last stanza really works. And I hope you're doing better.

      Delete