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Tuesday, April 14, 2020

PAD Challenge Day 14: To Form or Not To Form

From Writer's Digest PAD Challenge:

We’re two weeks into the challenge now, and our second “Two-for-Tuesday” prompt falls on the 14th, which gets me thinking about sonnets.

For today’s prompt:
  • Write a form poem (here are 100 poetic forms to choose from) and/or…
  • Write an anti-form poem. I get it; some people don’t like forms.

If you feel like a form doesn’t quite give you direction for today’s prompt, write a poem about something with structure or form, or write a poem about chaos.

Remember: These prompts are just springboards; you have the freedom to jump in any direction you want. In other words, it’s more important to write a new poem than to stick to the prompt.

24 comments :

  1. Here are the rules of tricubes:
    * Each line contains three syllables.
    * Each stanza contains three lines.
    * Each poem contains three stanzas

    The Can Can’t

    Children of
    essential
    workers can-t

    They can-not
    see grandma
    or grandpa.

    But they can-
    see me in
    my daycare?

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    Replies
    1. Good one. You really work well within the forms you've chosen or invented -- you make them work for you,

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    2. that was a fun poem... good job on your form

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    3. Way too true. This whole this is contradictory and confusing.

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  2. MANICHEAN ARAGON



    (OK, this is the most difficult form I have ever attempted to write in, and I've only mamanged to complete one poem in it. The aragon is a form invented by the French surrealist Louis Aragon to keep his mind occupied while hiding from the Nazis in occupied France during WWII. It’s a poem that can be read either as stanzas of six tetrameter lines or four hexameter lines, which will rhyme perfectly either way.)



    The metaphysicals delight
    In abstract thought; the hedonists
    Prefer the solid thwack! of lust.
    They’ll find their way wherever trysts
    Are free or bought. They claim that right
    Inviolate. They won’t adjust.

    Can there be compromise? We ought
    To end the fight, to live in trust,
    Remember that the mind exists
    To filter pleasure as we must.
    And yet it might be all for naught:
    Perhaps we all are masochists.




    The metaphysicals delight in abstract thought;
    The hedonists prefer the solid thwack! of lust.
    They’ll find their way wherever trysts are free or bought.
    They claim that right inviolate. They won’t adjust.

    Can there be compromise? We ought to end the fight,
    To live in trust, remember that the mind exists
    To filter pleasure as we must. And yet it might
    Be all for naught: perhaps we all are masochists.


    OK, let's see if I can rewrite it as free verse:

    Thinking or
    feeling? Meta-
    physicals puzzle out
    the truth, hedonists
    just push it in and
    pull it out. whenever
    they want. But maybe
    it's like Annie
    Lennox says, some want
    to abuse
    you, some just....



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    Replies
    1. that was totally AWESOME! I think I might attempt it! Thanks for the in-depth description and the historical details behind it! Good job!


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    2. Okay. I look at this as a challenge. I really want to write one of these.

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    3. You're all so good at this, I admire you all.

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  3. Have you ever heard the music of the wind
    Did you ever see the beauty of the storm
    The wind song makes opera sound chagrined
    It’s wild and the savage do perform

    Did you ever see the beauty of the storm
    The lightening and the thunder are untamed
    It’s wild and the savage do perform
    View the beauty of it now unconstrained

    The lightening and the thunder are untamed
    I watch it out the window mesmerized
    View the beauty of it now unconstrained
    The flashing and the forks might hurt your eyes

    I watch it out the window mesmerized
    My heart smiles at the splendor of the night
    The flashing and the forks might hurt your eyes
    The lightening makes the darkness shine so bright

    My heart smiles at the splendor of the night
    The wind blows the rain against the trees
    The lightening makes the darkness shine so bright
    The gale distorts the bushes with such ease

    The wind blows the rain against the trees
    Howls and whips and songs of wild life
    The gale distorts the bushes with such ease
    I listen to the mournful dirge stabbing like a knife

    Howls and whips and sings of wild life
    The wind song makes opera sound chagrined
    I listen to the mournful dirge stabbing like a knife
    Have you ever heard the music of the wind

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    Replies
    1. I feel like you cheated. Pantoum is our favorite family form. LOL

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    2. Poignant and well done too! (Sigh) so good.

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    3. Mary Anne Ellenburg-FieldsApril 15, 2020 at 10:04 PM

      I love this poetry form. Repeating lines give a haunting feel, like being followed. The theme of storm, wind, rain, lightning played well with the poem!

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  4. I am a sun child
    it draws me
    out of doors
    I’m also a daughter
    of the rain
    that fills mountain streams
    and cause waterfalls
    sun shines down
    upon my face
    I feel the energy
    as it flows
    through my flesh
    I freckle and I tan
    like raindrops through
    the rays of sun

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    Replies
    1. Mary Anne Ellenburg-FieldsApril 15, 2020 at 11:28 AM

      Love this purity of self

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  5. Silly Billy Joe, Willy Nilly

    There once was a fellow named Joe
    Who thought every one was his foe
    He muttered a curse
    That made everything worse
    And caused Joe great personal woe.

    So Joe wen to an exorcist
    Who wished him into better sorts
    And he got over his bad feelings
    And went on to love everybody.


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  6. Just decided to have fun here.Hey, it's late and I'm tired.

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  7. Okay I tried form Tad did, the Aragon. Not great, but not too bad for a first try if I must say so myself. LOL.

    1.
    I walk away through empty streets once full of life.
    We all now hide behind closed doors, pull up the sheets
    around our necks. All thoughts of pride now turned to strife.
    We long to ride this out, be sure our heart still beats.

    I know that it will end someday but I can’t tell
    exactly when. Uncertainty is certain. Say
    your prayers and binge watch CNN to see our hell
    today again and view what horrors lurk today.

    2.
    I walk away through empty streets
    once full of life. We all now hide
    behind closed doors, pull up the sheets
    around our necks. All thoughts of pride
    now turned to strife. We long to ride
    this out, be sure our heart still beats.

    I know that it will end someday
    but I can’t tell exactly when.
    Uncertainty is certain. Say
    your prayers and binge watch CNN
    to see our hell today again
    and view what horrors lurk today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are just so good. (head shake) I admire your skill.

      Delete
  8. Mary Anne Ellenburg-FieldsApril 15, 2020 at 11:25 AM

    FORM WITHOUT OR FORM CREATE

    IN THE BEGINNING
    That point in time and space that has no start,
    Is broken to await an end, with beat of heart.
    GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS
    The place where the sun, moon, planets, and stars lie,
    The home of angels and of goodness and sky.
    AND THE EARTH.
    The substance of surface water, rock and soil,
    The celestial ball where all now toil.


    THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM,
    There was no appearance to insist
    That shape, color or texture exist.
    AND VOID;
    An emptiness that nothing could fill,
    Nor holding to any agreement of will.
    AND DARKNESS
    An absence of color, much darker than night,
    The umbra of shadow, traveling faster than light.
    WAS ON THE FACE OF THE DEEP.
    Earth and water, motionless in fluid mass,
    Produce turbid chaos of perfect and imperfect abyss.


    AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD
    A presence of divine operative energy
    An unseen wind, mere thought in unity
    WAS HOVERING
    Hesitantly poised between matter’s state,
    Eternity without or Eternity create?
    OVER THE FACE OF THE WATERS.
    The plane where disorder and confusion confer,
    Till showed the power of the Great Spirit to stir.


    THEN GOD SAID,
    Power of the Great Creator, with Word
    Broke the darkness and all Creation heard...
    “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
    Creation into eternity was wrought
    And mankind’s existence, God’s Grace bought.

    ReplyDelete