Our challenge for August is to compose a simple 12-line poem. The poem must consist of three stanzas, with each stanza having four lines of iambic pentameter, and each stanza having a rhyme scheme of ABCB.
Did we say simple? That was a bit of ironic understatement, of course. Because the exact same poem must also be a 20-line poem written in iambic trimeter, just by changing the line breaks appropriately. When read in iambic trimeter, the poem will have five stanzas of four lines each, with again each stanza having a rhyme scheme of ABCB. (In a couple of places one of the trimeter’s rhyme words will actually coincide with a pentameter’s rhyme word, but more often they will just be interleaved.)
There are no requirements as to the subject matter.
The Results
Ryan Finholm
Jam Mints 1
This poem can be read in diff’rent ways,
It’s true, while keeping the “I am”s and such.
In jam mints too – on ev’ry other line
Those jam mints reappear. It’s way too much.
She thinks, says you’re a ball, a dear; says you’re
Averse, afire, a minced stroll, true, but whore:
You leer, assist, and play a doubled act
Till four in jam mints sticky up the floor.
My feet are fine, but I am bickering
Despite these curt, tall lines upon the screen.
This work still stands a fescennine, and yet,
Says Tina, “More in jam mints intervene.”
Jam Mints 2
This poem can be read
In diff’rent ways, it’s true,
While keeping the “I am”s
And such in jam mints too.
On ev’ry other line
Those jam mints reappear.
It’s way too much, she thinks,
Says you’re a ball, a dear;
Says you’re averse, afire,
A minced stroll, true, but whore –
You leer, assist, and play
A doubled act till four.
In jam mints sticky up
The floor, my feet are fine,
But I am bickering
Despite these curt, tall lines.
Upon the screen this work
Still stands a fescennine,
And yet, says Tina, “More
In jam mints intervene.”
Brian Raiter
The Night of My Arrest (1)
The night of my arrest I had a cold.
I said, between my sneezing fits, “I’m why
Celeste is dead. I’ve come here to confess.”
I came with Sally who refused to cry.
In the ensuing ballyhoo she left,
Without a word. No one has seen her since.
At first I was dismissed. It took Elaine
And Vince all night for them to be convinced.
Upon demand, I gave to them the knife
(I’d pried from Sally’s hand). My poor Celeste —
The tears you spilled when I confessed, the night
In which I had my cardiac arrest.
The Night of My Arrest (2)
The night of my arrest
I had a cold. I said,
Between my sneezing fits,
“I’m why Celeste is dead.
I’ve come here to confess.”
I came with Sally who
Refused to cry. In the
Ensuing ballyhoo
She left, without a word.
No one has seen her since.
At first I was dismissed.
It took Elaine and Vince
All night for them to be
Convinced. Upon demand,
I gave to them the knife
(I’d pried from Sally’s hand).
My poor Celeste — the tears
You spilled when I confessed,
The night in which I had
My cardiac arrest.
Ryan told me that his submission contained a dozen or so puns, so this is my public attempt to identify them all:
“I am”s == iambs
“in jam mints” == enjambments
“a ball, a dear” == a balladeer
“averse, afire” == a versifier
“a minced stroll” == a minstrel
“true, but whore” == troubador
“leer, assist” == lyricist
“doubled act till” == double-dactyl
“curt, tall lines” == curtailed lines
“says Tina” == sestina
… plus of course a dual reference to “feet”. (I also thought that “sticky up” might map to stich-something, but I couldn’t make it work beyond that.)
by Brian — 1 September 2014 @ 00:08
I did a fair amount of searching online but couldn’t find any examples of poetry in this format, so this poetic form might actually be a new, original creation. I was excited about that prospect until I got around to trying to complete the challenge.
I thought that this month would not be all that difficult, perhaps no more challenging than a sonnet in iambic pentameter (and the Commuter Challenge is obviously no stranger to those). After all, it’s two lines shorter than a sonnet, and it conforms to the exact same meter; add just a few more rhymes and you should be done. Better yet, if you write it in trimeter you only need one extra set of rhymes (the second syllable in line 4 with the fourth syllable in line 7) plus a couple of words to rhyme with the verses that you had to write anyway (the second syllable of the 14th line has to rhyme with the 3rd verse, and the fourth syllable of the 17th line has to rhyme with the 5th verse). Brian has a tendency to inject extra rhymes and complexity into his submissions anyway, so I figured it would be right up his alley.
The problems: To write in this format it is best to avoid multi-syllabic words in places that would involve hyphenating them at the end of a line in either format (pentameter or trimeter), and the format is unforgivingly peppered with those breaks. The many enjambments and caesuras necessitated by this format break up the flow of the poems and are mostly unavoidable. It is extremely difficult to convincingly maintain a natural feel. I ended up making several unsuccessful attempts before retreating into the nonsense poem I submitted. I used the cloak of nonsense to help justify the poem’s unintelligibility and lack of flow, with a nod to my pun-filled May 2011 ‘children’s picture book text’ CC entry.
So I doubt this format is going to become as popular as the Paradelle (which is another difficult format that I am not fond of), but if this format is truly new and original then I still think we should come up with a name for it. Better yet, we should name the entire cross-format category (pentameter/trimeter, hexameter/tetrameter, pentameter/tetrameter, etc).
by RyanF — 1 September 2014 @ 08:26
As I’d imagined would happen, Brian’s effort was much more successful than mine. I am having difficulty parsing out the story of the poem, but it doesn’t even matter, big-picture wise; Brian’s poem has good flow in both pentameter and trimeter, and a great surprise ending.
He also found a bunch of my puns. It’s actually supposed to be “curtal” instead of “curtailed” – a curtal sonnet is a shortened sonnet, which is a pretty appropriate reference for these poems. With the exceptions of double dactyl and sestina, all of the puns were at least somewhat related to this Challenge (double dactyl and sestina were wedged in for density’s sake). “Sticky up” is not a pun (at least not intentionally) and was more a stretch to link jam/mints, feet and floor.
There are two or three more puns hidden in the poem.
by RyanF — 1 September 2014 @ 09:23
This was definitely more challenging than just writing a sonnet, but I really enjoyed working on it. My tendency is to rely strongly on the line breaks and stanza breaks to dictate the shape of the text, and to completely avoid things like caesuras and enjambments. But with this format, they were basically impossible to avoid in both readings simultaneously. A lot of poetry is written with these intentional bumps in the meter, so practicing their use is a good thing.
In particular, I bristled at having to extend sentences and phrases across stanza breaks. It was simply unavoidable, though. So I de-emphasized the stanza breaks throughout — though this may have been a mistake, because in the middle part it makes it harder for the reader to keep track of when they’re on a rhyming or non-rhyming line. With all the metrical ambiguity, it’s easy to lose your place.
As Ryan notes, the story of my poem is vague, mainly because it’s really just a bunch of oblique observations crammed into a short space. Basically, Sally stabbed Celeste and the narrator is confessing to her crime — perhaps because he knows that he’s got a bad heart and so won’t actually live long enough to make it to prison. As for the reason Sally killed Celeste…? It probably has something to do with whatever the narrator confessed that upset Celeste so much, but I admit it isn’t clear to me either.
by Brian — 1 September 2014 @ 11:12
Oh, and yes: “curtailed” should be “curtal” in my list. I see now that I missed “says you’re a” == caesura. (In fact I missed it twice.) But I can’t find anything else.
by Brian — 1 September 2014 @ 11:14