Tag: triolet

Thanks to Buffy Silverman for hosting today’s Poetry Friday at her blog. I love the sweet rhythm in her “Rainbow-Colored Springtime” poem. It is so fun to read aloud. I will add it to my mentors, Buffy!

Last week I was working on meter and rhyme, and Linda Baie recommended Renee LaTulippe to me. This week I watched some of Renee LaTulippe’s “Peek and Critique” series on her YouTube channel–Lyrical Language Lab. Very helpful!

As a result, I continued to consider rhythm and rhyme. I tried two more triolets, inspired by Buffy’s rhythmic cicada song poem she wrote last month: “At the Oak’s Brown Skirt.” I also tried a triolet last month, but in that one I just counted eight syllables per line. This time I tried to be intentional and write in a certain meter. First, I tried iambic tetrameter, which is the common meter for English triolets:

No Algorithm for Rhythm

Afraid to write a poem today
I learned too much about the art
But not enough to bloom away
Afraid to write a poem today
Oh, will I ever find my way?
Remember I just need to start
Afraid to write a poem today
I learned too much about the art

I tried another one in trochaic tetrameter with truncated feet at the end of each line (that’s a mouthful, which I had never heard of before!)

Believe in Science

Give us science, real and sound.
Fauci, during novel strain,
Follows facts for virus round.
Give us science, real and sound.
Study will control the crown–
Vaccinate so health will reign.
Give us science, real and sound–
Fauci during novel strain.

I’m not sure how successful I was, but I will keep trying!

On another note, this week I cleaned out all the old drafts on my blog. I happened on one that I wrote in December 2013 about an event that happened in 2002. It seemed somehow appropriate for this Poetry Friday since I’ve been working on meter. Here is the post I wrote, but didn’t publish eight years ago:

I was sorting through my children’s things, scanning and purging after years of saving everything that came home from school. I found poems Maria had written in eighth grade. This paper with two scribbled poems was different from most of the things in her keepsake box. It wasn’t an assignment I had saved, but a scrap of paper that I recovered after she did her homework.

Her class was attempting rhyming with various rhyme schemes and rhythm patterns. She was struggling with the assignment. She didn’t want to write poems, and this was one of her first attempts:

This is a dumb assignment.
It needs some refinement.
You should put it in confinement.
Or sell it on consignment.

I was so excited and said, “I think that’s amazing. I’m going to share it with your teacher.”

She was quiet and continued working. Very quickly she passed her next poem to me:

Do not! I’ll get in trouble.
Don’t burst my bubble.

Sadly, I don’t know what she ended up turning in that next day because this post is all the memory I have of this scene.

Do head over to Buffy Silverman’s blog and you can find Poetry Friday hosting post with links to all the participants.