More about Rhyme

The Phoenix Rising Poetry Guild (offshoot of much-missed Poetic Bloomings and Creative Bloomings) is currently focusing on rhyme.  It gives us a selection of rhyming forms to try –
most of which I have already done, and – one which was new to me – Constanza.

ALOUETTE: 

The Alouette was created by Jan Turner, and  consists of two or more stanzas of 6 lines each, with the following set rules: Syllables: 5, 5, 7, 5, 5, which produces for me something of a limerick lilt.    Rhyme Scheme: a, a, b, c, c, b  

 

Nature Notes

image © Duncan Hutt

The red damselfly
though I don’t know why
has two sizes, large and small;
is known to be red
with very large head
lives up to six weeks, that’s all.

The blue damselfly –
not blue by the by,
in fact it is almost white –
like its red cousins
appears in dozens
in May, in flickering flight.                              VFB 20.05.2011

 

CONSTANZA: created by Connie Marcum Wong, consists of five or more 3-line stanzas. Each line has  eight syllables. The first lines of all the stanzas can be read successively as an independent poem, with the rest of the poem weaved in to express a deeper meaning. The first lines convey a theme written in monorhyme, while the second and third lines of each stanza rhyme together.

My first attempt is an example of the horrendous unpoetic rubbish that counting syllables and  forced hard rhymes produce in my hands!

Farewell

No more, please God, of snow and ice
I’ve had enough of winter cold
that stiffens joints now I am old.

No more dark gloomy mornings now –
daylight saving time coming soon
with longer days so opportune.

No more wearing thick woolly vests,
sweaters, scarves and socks in layers:
warmth, the answer to all my prayers.

No more scene of stark brown landscape
Fresh green will cover trees and fields
with buds and flowers the earth is veiled.

Farewell winter melancholy
Welcome all that comes in April
Strawberries soon on the table.

 

DIZAIN: Ten lines rhymed; usually (though not by definition) iambic pentameter. This is originally a French form  The rhyme scheme is: a-b-a-b-b-c-c-d-c-d.

Another Milestone  

arrived last night while I was fast asleep,
a target reached more quickly than I thought.
The number forty thousand on my screen
shows readers of this blog more than I sought.
Overwhelming as a juggernaut,
they come to read my modest minstrelcy.
And so I write to praise the loyalty,
persistence of my blogging friends who come
and comment daily  on my ribaldry,
with kind remarks to which I will  succumb.                      28.3.2011

 

That was written four years ago and the 100,000 milestone is also long past.

I will post my examples of the remaining forms , rondeau and triolet, later in the week.