Grayette

I found a few invented forms which appear to be exclusive to The Study and Writing of Poetry; American Women Poets Discuss Their Craft, 1983. The book is a collection of essays from 50 American women poets, each essay provides insights into a multitude of topics from poetic genres, stanzaic forms, to writing techniques. This book provided some addition insights and background information on several stanzaic forms that I thought I had researched fully. I liked this book, it pays attention to the details.

• The Grayette is an invented verse form created by James R Gray of Commerce, California.

The Grayette is:
○ a poem in 12 lines.
○ metric, iambic L1,L6,L7 and L12 are monometer, L2, L5,L8 and L11 are dimeter, L3, L4, L9 and L10 are tetrameter.
○ rhymed, x a b a x b x c d c x d, – x being unrhymed.

x x
x x x a
x x x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x
x b
x x
x x x c
x x x x x x x d
x x x x x x x c
x x x x
x d

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=2008#anna
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

When I had to Wear Shoes (Grayette)

My shoes
had no logo
no Velcro snaps nor any gel.
No superstar wore them for show.
They simply served
me well.
My feet
were bare as oft
as they were not, back in that day,
but tennis shoes helped give me loft
I saved them just
to play.

© Lawrencealot – August 24, 2014

Visual Template