Writing in Verse Forms

I’ve been writing in verse forms involving metered lines and end rhyme a good bit.

When I started daily writing at the beginning of the year I expected to write free verse poetry mostly.  I wanted to connect with my inner self through writing and I had no reason to write in verse forms with metered lines and end rhyme (or any rhyme).  I had set myself a task of finding a poem I liked every evening and then writing a poem (not necessarily related or similar to the one I liked).  My intent was to establish a daily habit of reading and writing.

One night I searched for and found a poem called Daddy Fell Into the Pond that I remembered liking as a kid.  It can be found here: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/daddy-fell-into-the-pond/.  Having sorted out that the author is Alfred Noyes I googled Noyes and found what is probably considered his masterpiece, The Highwayman, found here: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw85.html. He writes in a verse form with metered lines and end rhyme.  I thought I’d play around with that and this was the result:

Two moonbeams came bouncing and glistening

Off of the shiny wood floor

They slipped through the louvers

Then straight on maneuvered

To the cat near the foyer door

“What ho” said the cat “are you stalking?”

“Then I will go stalking too

For the sky it is wide

And it’s my cat’s pride

To go prowling the night with the moon”

So the cat he ascended a moonbeam

His little feet silently crept

Round the shimmering sky

He was ever so sly

And he never did falter a step

And he gazed at the cities of angels

And he roamed through the lands of the elves

And he spoke to the dreams

Of the silvery moon beams

And he had a fine time for himself!

The morning of course found him napping

All curled in a tight little ball

For though sunlight is fine

A cat’s sense of time

Is a mystery pondered by all

The cat as a character and the shape of the story emerged in my mind unexpectedly.  I could feel some part of my mind filling out the narrative and another part searching for language to fulfill the verse form.  I was in the middle taking dictation.  When it was done I felt refreshed, and I knew that the task of writing in a verse form had connected me with something creative in myself.

I learned from the experience that for me there’s a payoff to writing in verse forms, so I’ve done more of it.

Here’s an example of a rondeau (John McCrae’s famous rondeau, In Flanders Fields, can be found here: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm):

Between the worlds and restless dreams

Where shadows dance and moonlight streams

A spider waits on stealthy web

And feels the trembling of each thread

And coming is and going seems

As moonlight glints off swirling streams

Trees whisper, sighing in their dreams

Expectancy, or is it dread?

Between the worlds

The breeze demanding what it means

The spider skitters soft unseen

Across the taught and trembling web

Vibrations dance as mass is shed

A shadow slipstreams through the screen

Between the worlds

“Between the worlds”  seemed like an interesting phrase to repeat and one that could either begin or end a thought, and so a good basis for a rondeau.  I love moonlight in the woods at night and wanted a poem that would capture the feeling of being in the woods in moonlight with a stream flowing nearby.  The spider, expectancy/dread, something transiting between worlds,  all came to mind as I engaged the process of writing in a verse form.

And finally, here’s an example of a villanelle (Theodore Roethke’s The Waking, maybe my favorite poem all time, which is in this form, can be found here: http://gawow.com/roethke/poems/104.html):

Tormented trudging up the sacred hill

To find a peace within we journey far

The sacred swirling dance becoming still

Intending resurrection be fulfilled

We struggle toward the slowly rising star

Tormented trudging up the sacred hill

Impelled beyond all reason by the thrill

Of expectation, guessing what we are

The sacred swirling dance becoming still

What cup of sorrow must be ours to fill

By what deep guilt this dreaded quest is ours

Tormented trudging up the sacred hill

Our vows we’ve taken, broken, fought with will

And torn our flesh, yet proudly bore the scares

The sacred swirling dance becoming still

By struggle sacred cups of blood we’ve filled

And broke our bodies, sharing what we are

Tormented trudging up the sacred hill

The sacred swirling dance becoming still

I love religious imagery, and writing this helped me to connect with it.