Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot welcoming me to the land of dream Sofas couches fog in England Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows curtains on his windows, fog seeping in the chimney but a nice warm house and an incredibly sweet hooknosed Eliot he loved me, put me up, gave me a couch to sleep on, conversed kindly, took me serious asked my opinion on Mayakovsky I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac advised Burroughs Olson Huncke the bearded lady in the Zoo, the intelligent puma in Mexico City 6 chorus boys from Zanzibar who chanted in wornout polygot Swahili, and the rippling rythyms of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay. On the Isle of the Queen we had a long evening’s conversation Then he tucked me in my long red underwear under a silken blanket by the fire on the sofa gave me English Hottie and went off sadly to his bed, Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad to have met a fine young man like you. At last, I woke ashamed of myself. Is he that good and kind? Am I that great? What’s my motive dreaming his manna? What English Department would that impress? What failure to be perfect prophet’s made up here? I dream of my kindness to T.S. Eliot wanting to be a historical poet and share in his finance of Imagery- overambitious dream of eccentric boy. God forbid my evil dreams come true. Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg. T.S. Eliot would’ve been ashamed of me
Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997
Allen Ginsberg Born: 3 June 1926, New Jersey, USA Nationality: American Died: 5 April 1997, New York, USA
Ginsberg was a poet, philosopher, and writer. In the 1940s as a student of Columbia College he began a close friendship with WS Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression. He embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, openness to Eastern religions, and hostility to bureaucracy. Ginsberg is best known for the poem ‘Howl’ which denounces the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity within the United States at the time
Love is the honoured man, a soul’s own twin Who, without the need for family blood, Stands as a brother and my bestest bud And knows all the secrets beneath my skin
In modern terms they call it a bromance Okay, I suppose it could be called that It is love nonetheless for modern chat Devoted spirits taking the same stance
I have his back and I know he has mine Nothing comes between brothers of the soul As in each other emotions console
So, I need no modern words to define I’m Jeeves to his Wooster, or switch it round We are gentlemen’s gents, to me that is sound
The Rime Couée is a French form written over two rhymes. The first is a rhyming couplet of eight syllables then a shorter third line of six lines. The two couplets rhyme as do the shorter lines. This gives a form pattern of
xxxxxxxa xxxxxxxa xxxxxb xxxxxxxa xxxxxxxa xxxxxb
Example
Butterfly Dance by JezzieG
Slowly feasting on petaled rose Nature’s gift as the summer glows She flutters through the pink It’s on her wings her beauty shows Black, white, and red that nature chose In pink she’s dark as ink
A nectar morsel here and there For her life is short and unfair Pollen shared, she moves on A brief career but does she dare For one more day of grace to share While flitting in the sun
Created by: Jose Rizal M. Reyes Structure: Three quatrains and a couplet Meter: Pentameter or decasyllabic Rhyme Scheme: abba ccDD eeDD ff, D lines are feminine rhyme
Example
Barefoot Youth by Larry Eberhart
In summertime I never would wear shoes unless I hiked the rocky mountainside, and nearly all my time was spent outside, and shoes I’d choose most happily to lose.
My preference helped mother make ends meet I felt no anguish playing in bare feet. My family had its very own depression and bought me shoes when school began its session.
I felt a pride in having feet so tough, (it proved that I was made of sterner stuff.) When roads of tar got hot there was no question, I’d stand on them to make a deep impression.
My feet today have nothing wrong at all though other parts succumb to aging’s call
Sitting beneath the arch of sweet, scented jasmine the hot summer night murmurs with memories. Gentle breezes once kissed by the sea wistfully cool the sultry air. Still the night is heavy with emptiness as the pen struggles for simple words.
only love echoes across a dark summer’s night poet can but weep
before I understood I was nothing much and never anything worth thinking about just a rhythm out of beat playing the wrong tune in a world of misunderstanding that I would never fit in
ASEXUALITY
I said it out loud and will keep saying it for in that saying I became enough for you –
enough to make ridicule enough to degrade enough to leave
Snow-white! Snow-white! O lady clear! O Queen beyond the Western Sea! O Light to us that wander here Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath. Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee In a far land beyond the Sea.
O stars that in the Sunless Year With shining hand by her were sown, In windy fields now bright and clear We see your silver blossom blown.
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees, Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel, Silivren penna miriel O menal aglar elenath! Na-chaered palan-diriel O galadhremmin ennorath, Fanuilos, le linnathon nef aear, si nef aearon!
Ai! laurie lantar lassi surinen! Yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron, Yeni ve linte yuldar vanier Mi oromardi lisse-miruvoreva Andune pella Vardo tellumar Nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni Omaryo airetari-lirinen.
Si man i yulma nin enquantuva?
An si Tintalle Varda Oilosseo Ve fanyar maryat Elentari ortane, Ar ilye tier undulare lumbule; Ar sindanoriello caita mornie I falmalinnar imbe met, ar hisie Untupa Calaciryo miri oiale. Si vanwa na, Romello vanwa, Valimar! Namarie! Nai hiruvalye Valimar. Nai elye hiruva. Namarie!
Ah! Like gold fall the leaves in the wind, Long years numberless as the wings of trees! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead In lofty halls beyond the West Beneath the blue vaults of Varda Wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, Holy and queenly.
Who now shall refill the cup for me?
For now the Kindler, Varda, The Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite Has uplifted her hands like clouds, And all paths are drowned deep in shadow; And out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, And mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar!
Gilthoniel A Elbereth! A Elbereth Gilthoniel O menel palan-diriel, Le nallon si dinguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos!
A! Elbereth Gilthoniel! Silivren penna miriel O menal aglar elenath, Gilthoniel, A! Elbereth! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
JRR Tolkien 1892-1973
JRR Tolkien Born: 3 January 1892, Bloemfontein, South Africa Nationality: English Died: 2 September 1973, Bournemouth, England
Tolkien was a writer and philologist, best known as the author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” He was also the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College at the University of Oxford. He and his close friend CS Lewis founded the informal literary group “The Inklings.” Many authors published works of fantasy before Tolkien, however, the great success of both “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” directly led to a resurgence in the genre and Tolkien is often referred to as the father of modern fantasy literature
Thou shalt no God but me adore: ‘Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make For Roger Ingersoll to break.
Take not God’s name in vain: select A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all, But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents. That creates For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill; Thou shalt not pay thy butcher’s bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor’s wife, unless Thine own thy neighbor doth caress.
Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete Successfully in business. Cheat.
Bear not false witness–that is low– But “hear ’tis rumored so and so.”
Covet thou naught that thou hast got By hook or crook, or somehow, got
Ambrose Bierce 1842-c1914
Ambrose Bierce Born: 24 June 1842. Ohio, USA Nationality: American Died: c.1914, Chihuahua Desert, Mexico?
Bierce was a journalist, poet, short story writer, and American Civil War veteran. His book “The Devil’s Dictionary” was named one of the ! 00 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. A prolific writer Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the USA and a pioneer of realist fiction
Where reality and fantasy blur And the seawater mingles with the sky Lies the one place where I’ll always find her
My very own Venus dressed in her fur When my eyes drift to that dreamy state For ours is the love that keeps rolling by I know she’s there when the waiting is done As the sun gives way to another night
I close my eyes so senses integrate Hers and mine and as our passions ignite Longings of desire begin to sate Once more we are one for a love-filled night
Until my heart must again be undone With the light rising on a new day’s sun
The pulse races when passions are liquid hot not even your kiss can staunch the flow of lust and the delicate pearls of sweat form on your brow I know your hunger is melting too I feel it bubbling on your lips as we kiss you start to whisper a breeze on my ear all I can say
“just kiss me, baby, just kiss me” my body burning like molten rock and coolness of your hands on my hips your mouth sizzling down my bare chest anticipation raging for the drag of your nail over the fly off my jeans my jeans my jeans?
“you left them before you fell, babe before you fell you fell” too late I am lost to your lips taking me in into the depths of sweet penetration thrusting
what the hell is that noise piercing my brain without mercy
another plastic box shatters against the wall damn you alarm can you not let me dream?
With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright. The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves, Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering, Moving in blind grace … yet from the mural, Care The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist, Seizes the baby hero by the hair And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children, Words of a doom as ecumenical as dawn But blanched like dawn, with dew. The children’s cries Are to men the cries of crickets, dense with warmth — But dip a finger into Fafnir, taste it, And all their words are plain as chance and pain. Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres Because their lives are: the capricious infinite That, like parents, no one has yet escaped Except by luck or magic; and since strength And wit are useless, be kind or stupid, wait Some power’s gratitude, the tide of things. Read meanwhile … hunt among the shelves, as dogs do, grasses, And find one cure for Everychild’s diseases Beginning: Once upon a time there was A wolf that fed, a mouse that warned, a bear that rode A boy. Us men, alas! wolves, mice, bears bore. And yet wolves, mice, bears, children, gods and men In slow preambulation up and down the shelves Of the universe are seeking … who knows except themselves? What some escape to, some escape: if we find Swann’s Way better than our own, an trudge on at the back Of the north wind to — to — somewhere east Of the sun, west of the moon, it is because we live By trading another’s sorrow for our own; another’s Impossibilities, still unbelieved in, for our own … “I am myself still?” For a little while, forget: The world’s selves cure that short disease, myself, And we see bending to us, dewy-eyed, the great CHANGE, dear to all things not to themselves endeared
Randall Jarrell 1914-1965
Randall Jarrell Born: 6 May 1914, Tennessee, USA Nationality: American Died: 14 October 1965, North Carolina, USA
Jarrell was a literary critic, children’s author, essayist, novelist, and poet. He was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Jarrell received the Guggenheim Fellowship award for 1947-48, and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1961
The main rule of the Descort poem is that each line needs to be different from every other line in the poem. Therefore the poem has varying line lengths, and meters, no rhyme, and no refrains.
Example
Turn of Season by JezzieG
No more daffodils sway in the lane The spring has lost the dancing breeze Replaced by April’s tears of rain Frogs are courting by the slippery logs Never asking more than a brief encounter And as April turns to May Dog bark in the green grass fields Amid the budding dandelions And yellow buttercups And the summer begins to blossom
The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone; The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes, Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back; The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up, And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow, Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind, And bushes close in snow like hovel warm; There tainted mutton wastes upon the coals, And the half-wasted dog squats close and rubs, Then feels the heat too strong, and goes aloof; He watches well, but none a bit can spare, And vainly waits the morsel thrown away. ‘Tis thus they live – a picture to the place, A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race
On the shelf is a new tube of mint paste A different brand from the one I choose Yet my heart smiles seeing it there so placed
And a shower gel-scented summer rose Stands next to mine of musky sandalwood Towelling down; scent of coffee you chose Decaffeinated is doing me good
You’re wearing my t-shirt I suppose And my fluffy robe too, is yours to use I am making note of things I should get My jeans clinging to my shower-damp waist A slow Sunday morning maybe we could
Just go back to bed and build up some sweat Reliving the moments we’ll never forget
The Englyn Byr Cwca is a Welsh form utilizing both end and internal rhyme. Composed of tercets (3-line stanzas). Line 1 has 7 syllables, line 2 has 10 syllables, and line 3 has 6 syllables. Lines 1 and 3 end rhyme and line 2 rhymes with a syllable within line 3.
Example
Myth and Legend by JezzieG
I am the custodian protecting courage in every part the brave heart’s guardian
I’m the echoing legend that speaks of the brave deeds of long ago so, on me you depend
I am myth and memory remembered in fireside tales told by bards in shards of poetry
This time of year as the season’s change And winter’s reach seems to disarrange Sunshine so strange as it deceives the eye It is not so warm out here on the range
Days are longer and the nights get short Life returns and wild things now court A love’s consort among the budding trees And yellow daffodils outside the fort
My willow tree holds her hints of green Above the swollen white rushing stream New tendrils dream; too soon for them to trail The cool flowing waters beneath her beam
But still I’ll sit here with her a while At her peace within the woodland mile Perhaps I feel her smile as seasons turn To the earth’s rebirth in the springtime style
Created by Vincente Espinel, a Spanish poet, the Espinela consists of two stanzas, four end rhymes over 10 lines. The first stanza is a quatrain and the second stanza is a sestet. Each line is tetrameter or 8-syllables. The rhyme scheme is as follows:
abba accddc
Example
Nights of Romancing by JezzieG
How I wish we could go dancing Like we did in those olden days Moving rhythm as music plays In those nights of our romancing
Warm nights of summer entrancing Enchanting love for you and me Walking beside the starlit sea Stroll back home; a bottle of wine On those nights that were so divine As we kissed setting our love free
Hey Father Death, I’m flying home Hey poor man, you’re all alone Hey old daddy, I know where I’m going
Father Death, Don’t cry any more Mama’s there, underneath the floor Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Aunty Death Don’t hide your bones Old Uncle Death I hear your groans O Sister Death how sweet your moans
O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths Sobbing breasts’ll ease your Deaths Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius Death your art is done Lover Death your body’s gone Father Death I’m coming home
Guru Death your words are true Teacher Death I do thank you For inspiring me to sing this Blues
Buddha Death, I wake with you Dharma Death, your mind is new Sangha Death, we’ll work it through
Suffering is what was born Ignorance made me forlorn Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father Breath once more farewell Birth you gave was no thing ill My heart is still, as time will tell
Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997
Allen Ginsberg Born: 3 June 1926, New Jersey, USA Nationality: American Died: 5 April 1997, New York, USA
Ginsberg was a poet, philosopher, and writer. In the 1940s as a student of Columbia College, he began a close friendship with WS Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression. He embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, openness to Eastern religions, and hostility to bureaucracy. Ginsberg is best known for the poem ‘Howl’ which denounces the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity within the United States at the time
Created by: JezzieG Structure: Triplet, Quintain, Quatrain, and Couplet Meter: Poet’s choice Rhyme Scheme: aba abcde cdcd ee Notes: The order of the end rhymes of the quintain are in any order, giving 120 variants.
Example
A Birth by JezzieG Quintain – abcde
The sonnet for so long has echoed my voice With words and lines my lips find hard to say In saddest despair and love to rejoice
For the epistles it’s an easy choice To let my own thoughts flow out in this way Whilst testing out this, a new sonnet form Joining the Rovi and Ivor as one Twisting the rhyme scheme just one more time
And letting them mingle in a brainstorm A triplet and quintet but can it be done A quatrain and a couplet, that’s a norm Just messing with the rhymes, I think I won
Now, the closing lines left to end this rhyme And I have a sonnet mountain to climb
Definition: Bitter – adj. having a sharp, pungent taste or smell; not sweet; feeling or showing anger, hurt, or resentment because of bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment
Definition: Chafe – v. (with reference to a part of the body) make or become sore by rubbing against something; rub (a part of the body) to restore warmth or sensation
Ophelia among the Flowers by Odilon Redon,1905-08. Pastel on paper. National Gallery, London. UK
Ophelia among the Flowers Form: Gwawdodyn Hir
In beauty, a lady doomed to die Suicide, accident, both ask why A young girl rests in a sleep-like sigh Ill-fated dreaming just passing by Beauty is hidden in nature’s flowers Such are the powers where the angels fly
A song of sorrow or mourning, the Elegy is often for or about someone who has died. However, poets being poets and just that bit contrary on such matters, have also written elegies for the end of something such as a love affair, a holiday, or even a year. Form, meter, and structure are not important, content is what matters.
Example
Silence of Twilight by JezzieG
In that cold silence of twilight when the ashes of love faded but never burned out the moon rose in mourning to ease my crying heart as my eyes wept into the night into the aloneness my life would be yet as the sun rose in his golden wonder I felt a warm embrace reminding me I am not alone for you will always be with me
Our love woven like delicate Belgian lace intricate strands combining forming a beautiful design like a lilac in flower sharing its fragrance on the cool morning air combining with the aroma of sun-kissed dew and the wild mint growing by the pond pungent and earthy delicate yet strong our love was the fierce winter wind entwined with a warm summer breeze embracing the golden light of sunrise with the flaming skies of twilight for we were the moon and the sun mingled in the flames of love
Jezzie G 