Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Maybe years of listening to Shakespearian verse has taken its toll, but I found the next exercise quite hard and counter-intuitive. The idea is that syllabic count and rhyme don’t matter. Instead, each half line should contain two beats, and all four in the line should follow the ‘bang, bang, bang, crash’ pattern of alliteration. Although I more or less managed those constraints, I couldn’t help but be influenced by the syllables as well. Anyway, we were asked to write about something that was on out minds, and it was late at night so here goes:

You tricked me with tenderness, teased me with love
You cheerfully charmed me, a child with a toy
You played with my pleasure, you purchased my faith
You surprised me with presents, both pretty and sweet
I trusted your tenderness, treasured your kiss
But a coward was coldly and cruely beneath
You left me alone, I was cold and deceived
I should not have gone near, I should not have believed
Your words seemed so witty, your words seemed so true
How stupid and silly to see such in you.

I couldn’t help the last couple of rhymes, and the alliteration in line 8 depends on the rhythm, so I guess it’s not in the true spirit.

I’m looking forward to getting back to the syllabic stuff!

Ternary Feet

Ok, this is a difficult one.

Anapaestic Hexameters describing how to get to your house. I would have found it much easier to write in tetrameters with this metre, but here we go:

If you wish to be swift you should hop on the tube just as soon as you like
The Victoria line is the line that is blue and is just what you need
Just be patient, just sit, till you get to the Hale and then off you will jump
Take a left at the gate and then under the road. Just the bridge left to go.

I’m not very happy with my attempt there. I don’t think 6 beats to a line suits me at all, and all my instinct was to cut them shorter.

Next, dactylic pentameter on the subject of cows. Four dacyls and a spondee. Again very hard, especially with the 40 minute time limit for both poems.

Cows in the fields, just like cows on the farms live a good life
Grazing and mooing, their days filled with sunshine and fresh grass
Flies perhaps bothers you when it is hot in the day time
Warm in your shed over night there is comfort and warm hay.

I’m not sure I truly believe that cows live such an idyllic existence, but it serves the purpose of the exercise!

More Meters

Subject: Television.

First alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter:

The TV’s on, the brain is off
The chatter fills the air
The pictures flash across the screen
But stop to think, beware

Just where will all this watching lead?
What good can come of this?
We live our lives through stories but
Reality we miss!

Now straight tetrameter:

At times I like to watch TV
It stops me thinking, makes me numb
It’s easy just to sit and stare
Why think when you can just play dumb?

Inside that box there’s only fun
Play games, sing songs, make love, you choose.
If you can dream it, it’s been done
But just don’t ever watch the news

And finally a trochic tetrameter (second quatrains with docked endings):

Everyone loves chat and gossip
Who’s been good and who’s been naughty
Don’t despair if all seems quiet
Oprah’s back on channel forty

Mr Kyle is on each morning
Solving problems, fighting crime
“Did we find your long lost brother?
Oops we’ve just run out of time!”

Weak Endings, Trochaic and Pyrrhic Substitutions

Ok, now it gets hard. I’m having particular difficulty with the weak endings.

The exercise instructed that we choose some headlines from the BBC website for inspiration. Here goes:

Two men can love, but not declare that love.
The church opposes such a thing. The Lord
is angered by such love? How can this be
if love is true and God created all?

Deep in the forests something lurks beneath,
unseen by human eyes. The rumours claim
A Yeti strides around this jungle land.
Could it be so that he is shy of camera
and film alike? He prefers our dreams
It seems. A truly canny type of guy.

The sheep are grazing as the dead lie sleeping
Neither disturbs his neighbour. All is well.
The grass is neat and trim, the sheep are full
and yet complaints are brewing overground
‘It’s disrespectful’ is the cry. ‘The dead need
peace not chomping livestock roaming by’.
For me? I hope lambs help me rest in peace.

Hmmm, various levels of success there I think. Much harder than keeping to the strict metre. However, it is interesting to try to do these exercises. They focus the mind and you do feel like you are creating something new and original.

Caesura and Enjambment

First without:

The cars upon the bridge go driving by
The cygnets take their first unguided swim

A headache tablet really is my need
and water from a glass to quench my thirst

Both and I sat hugging on a beach
The rain fell down but we did not get wet

I wish I’d done the washing up tonight
The plates aren’t clean and crumbs lay on the side

My chin is longer than my wish would be
My legs are short and noses is squat and fat.

And then with: (same prescribed subject matter)

The bridge is full of cars, all driving by
my window. Cygnets, daring, leave the nest.

My need is for a tablet that can ease
the pain inside my head. And water please.

We sat upon a beach, just you and I
as rain fell. But we kept each other dry.

The plates aren’t clean, the side has not been swept
of crumbs. The sink is full and pans not done.

My legs, too short. My nose, too fat. My chin
is long and far too prominent. For me.

NB. These were not supposed to be rhyming couplets, but somehow some of them just ended up that way!

Iambic Pentameter

I think of what you may be thinking now
Are you alone or with some friend or pal

Perhaps you have not been online today
Perhaps your PC broke or line is down

I hope tomorrow brings another mail
I hope you smiled when my last mail arrived

It now is time for me to go to sleep
Tomorrow brings a lie in which is sweet

My dangly man now has his head and tail
I’ll knit all night to just complete the job

My odes are not as bad as first I thought
I’ll prove that verse is well within my reach

I’ll prove creative is it takes all year

The game tomorrow will be fast and fresh
I’ll catch and throw as if my name is babe

My glove will stop all balls before they land

My phone is red and lies upon the side

Each day seems not to have sufficient hours

My foot is sore and painful when I walk
But still I’m play and shop and drink and talk

The beginning

The idea of this blog is to record my fledging attempts at poetry writing as I work my way through the writing course in Stephen Fry’s ‘The Ode Less Travelled’.

In each chapter he sets exercises that you must work through and gradually you learn about form and metre and various other aspects of verse writing.

What I put on here will be highly unlikely to be deep or profound, but I hope that it will interesting to follow any development that takes place.

Everything is hand written and the typed up later, without censorship or editing.