Tag Archives: stanzaic

Galloping Denturn

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GALLOPING DENTURN is a poetry form invented by Dennis William Turner, writing on All Poetry as Dennisturner19.

  • It is comprised of two DACTYLIC tetrameter quatrains stating a point of view.
  • This is followed by a stand-alone one, two or three syllable word or phrase. For example: but – unless – but then – although – until, – however etc., Providing the TURN.
  • The concluding two quatrains, in ANAPESTIC tetrameter, make the argument, (emphasised by the change of metre.)

Turner’s Example

Form: Galloping Denturn

Why Bother?

Sometimes, my targets are scarcely attainable;
All that I try to do seems to fall short,
Efforts invested are hardly sustainable,
Work and commitment can all come to nought.
Labour seems pointless with goals unachievable.
Destined for failure, why should I still try?
Thoughts of success can be quite inconceivable.
“Try, try again,” they say. I just say, “Why?”

Although…

There’s a lot to be said for attempting your best
And for pushing and striving that little bit more
And remaining committed when put to the test
And to put in more effort than ever before.
If I DON’T try at all, then I’m doomed from the start
And it’s not a nice thing to be doomed, I confess,
So all negative thoughts should be set well apart
And I’ll give it the best that I can — nothing less!

© Dennis Turner, November 2017

My Attempt

Form: Galloping Denturn

Self-Medication

Ardently I do eschew taking medicine
arguing strongly against such reliance.
Eating correctly provides all my lecithin,
AND all the nutrients known now to science.
Certainly sponsors will vouch with some clarity
championing benefits brand names provide.
Taking their claims as the truth would be charity
Knowing beforehand how many have lied.

However,

With my tendency shown to perhaps skip some meals,
to respond to the TV’s promoting fast food,
and to pay much attention to five dollar deals
well, I might then deduce that my diet’s no good.
And I do take my Bayer’s prescribed for my heart,
and some Anacin, rarely, without too much fuss
since my doc’ says take pills — well then maybe I’ll start
I’m not stupid, you know, just a growing old cuss.

© Lawrencealot, November 2017

A Visual Template:

LaCalma

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A form created by Laura Lamarca in June, 2015.

  • Form description:
  • rhyme scheme aaa,bB,cc,dd,bB.
  • 8 syllables per line in iambic tetrameter.
  • 11 lines per stanza. 3 stanzas (33 lines) total.
  • Content must be nurturing, spiritual.

Lamarca’s Example

Form: LaCalma

[Untitled]

Please take this gift to give you hope
and then, in walking, you will cope
without that weight hung on life’s rope.
You are not on your path alone,
there’s two of us on this stroll home,
towards that light which beckons us
amongst those bright stars, just because
it’s where our spirits choose to hide
when human needs have leaked inside
our solid selves of blood and bone.
There’s two of us on this stroll home.

Please take this gift to give you peace
a languid smile, a soft release
so trauma, on your path, will cease.
We do not walk this way with dark,
there is a ray…a lasting spark–
a warm embrace, a lazy kiss
a reason why we walk like this…
as fallen few and guiding lights
we bring lost “feel” on deepest nights
and though we leave no sign or mark
there is a ray…a lasting spark.

Please do not walk without me near
do not begin this road with fear
for to true selves we must adhere
as life clings on to our firm feet,
we must go on, our goals complete.
Raze brambles from our disarray
remove the stains that just can’t stay.
and if you find yourself alone
then don’t fret dear, I’m coming home…
this world shall not, us both, defeat
we must go on, our goals complete.

My Example

Form: LaCalma

No Village Needed

The kids have gone, they’ve left the nest
and now, we thought, we’ve time to rest
that is so wrong; you might have guessed.
The kids move back, the grandkids too –
like me, they want to be near you.
As grandpa now I have my fun –
the pampering has just begun.
The parents change the diapers now
(but grandpa still remembers how)
They like your cooking, that is true –
like me, they want to be near you.

Economy these days does suck,
so with parents some kids are stuck
for grandkids though that is good luck.
They get to live a life that’s swell
Gramps chose his wife so very well.
Papa is constant source of fun
but Grandma is the careful one.
She keeps their enegy constrained
when grandpa acts like he’s untrained;
he knows she will, and you can tell,
Gramps chose his wife so very well.

When a step-niece who grew up wild
became involved and had a child
though there were tears, still Grandma smiled.
Rescuing people was her way
and Grandma does that to this day.
Extended families grow unbid
from thoughtless things teenagers did
yet somehow someone up above
assures the unbid will find love.
Dispensing love is just her way
and Grandma does that to this day.

© Lawrencealot – June 10, 2015

Visual template:

At the time I composed this poem, and template, the form had not yet been named. Since I had to call it something for filing purposes, I called it the Lamarkable, I have since found that Laura named it LaCalma.

Trisect

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The following desription is reposted with permission from Form and Formlessness, with thanks to Erin A. Thomas, who also writes on Allpoetry as Zahhar.

My 1st trisect poem. The trisect is my own semantically complex poetic form which I will use to help me with developing my use of depictive language.

E merge nce


Fortress

walls of paper kept the world at bay
cubes of indistinction none would see
where settled there within a watcher peered

the dusty brown a perfect camouflage
propped against a wall or by a hedge
passed a thousand times by reckless feet

corrugated fibers held the wind
so that the space inside was made to form
a child’s island haven from the storm

sometimes it was a spaceship among the stars
sometimes a moon-base on a barren scape
sometimes a roving tank all battle-scarred
but always it provided safe escape


Goliath

shaped from molten vats of ore
molded by a burning greed
riveted with violent force
pieces merge to fill a need

manifest from heavy silence
oils surge and slowly drip
uncertainty across the roads

power charges through its frame
explosions channeled in its chest
to serve a senseless master’s will

tires grind an alley’s dirt
shadows steer a ghostly wheel
the phantom grill athirst for blood


Impact

black lightning strikes the living clay
evaporating life from every limb
suspending consciousness alone
void of breath yet interfused with fear

tires spin throughout the dark
an engine roars above a twisted neck
inches from a lifeless face
psychic tethers anchored in vibration

a heedless monster lumbers back
the shelter shattered open like a nest
blood resumes its former course
and wild bones reanimate the flesh

a figure stands and staggers numb with pain
screams and scampers filled with terror
headlights rear and fade away
a child’s bones left fractured like his mind


The first segment focuses on cardboard. I used to create cardboard forts when I was a child—sometimes very elaborate—and hang out in them all day long. Some of them would be portable, and some would be built in vacant lots or alleyways blocks or miles from home. They were always very well camouflaged, so my little hideout would remain my little hideout. The portable ones I’d often setup at the edge of a busy parking lot, made to look like a pile of scrap cardboard, where I’d hang out and just watch people without them knowing. These simple forts were a safe haven for me, a private place to go and be away from troubles and worries. And I had my share.

The second segment focuses on the automobile, the car. I remember reading up on their manufacturing process and design, and the primary materials used in their construction, before starting this segment.

The third segment focuses on a little mishap I had in one of those cardboard forts as a 14 year old, which involved a car. It was in an alleyway a few blocks from home. City blocks. Los Angeles City blocks. About a mile away at least. I had some big fight with my mother that day and decided I’d just have my own space that night in a cardboard fort I and a friend had built a day or two before. It was a beautiful fort, with four separate compartments, each of which were big enough to lay out flat in. The whole thing was masterfully camouflaged with various sorts of debris from the area, including dead palm branches and branches of other sorts. In the end it looked like a slash pile, just a bunch of branches and other random materials tossed into a pile—but it was hollow, and there were access points.

That night as I slept a car slammed into the fort and ran over my right arm, shoulder, and neck, breaking the upper arm longways from near the elbow across to the top near the ball socket, and blew a piece out of the ball socket itself. My neck was severely sprained—which is of course a miracle. It was possible to make out the tire treads on my throat. How I happened to be aligned such that the tire didn’t snap my head one way and pop my skull off the spine like a bottle opener I have no idea.

This was my first NDE. I have no way to prove it, but I just know. I know what I experienced, and I was dead for at least a moment—and a moment is long enough to be dead. Sometime I’ll dedicate some poetry and discussion to that experience. But as I “returned”, after the car had somehow managed to back up off me without running over my neck a second time, I sprang up in a panic, and it came toward me again, then stopped, then backed all the way down the alley and around the far corner, as if in a mad rush to escape affiliation with the mishap. I’ll never forget the sight of those headlights.

I was near a series of hotels. And each time I knocked, with my left arm since right wouldn’t respond, the owners would come to the door and I’d ask for help and they’d slam the door on me. It sucked. In this manner I ended up up making my way half a mile to an apartment complex my mom had lived in a year or so before, where some people knew me, and an ambulance was called.

Lilit

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Thai poetry.

• The Lilit is an alternating Raay and Kloang verse. Usually the Raay is used to describe the action and the Kloang is the dialogue.

The Lilit is:
○ stanzaic, alternating Raay couplets with Kloang quatrains.
○ syllabic, the couplets are 5 syllable lines and the quatrains are L1-L3 7 syllable lines and L4 is a 9 syllable line.
○ couplets composed with a chain, linking the lines of the couplet and linking the stanzas.
○ rhymed, composed with cross, interlaced and end rhyme .

x x x x a
a x x x b
b x x x c x d
x x x x d x c
x x x x d x e
x x x x c x x x e
e x x x f
f x x x g
g x x x h x i
x x x x i x h
x x x x i x j
x x x x h x x x j

Pasted from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

Chain: A series of verses or stanzas in which the last word of the verse or stanza is repeated as the first word of the next verse or stanza.

Cross rhyme: When the end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the next line

Interlaced rhyme: A word in the middle of one line rhymes with a word in the middle of another.

My Example

Form: Lilit

Nuance


Stop and take a look.
Look at what I’ve found.

“Found something, new you say?”
While it’s okay to view
the form that way, it’s old
in fact, which you can now behold.

Behold it’s Thailand.
Thailand’s ancient verse.

Verse once inscribed on walls
and in great halls described
is something called new now
what was transcribed– ignored somehow.

© Lawrencealot – January 29, 2015

Visual Template

Tengahan Wukir

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Javanese poetry was originally meant to be sung for an audience, not read in private.

• Tengahan Wukir meter is a form of Kidung (songs) that marries the stanza length with the meter used. They were written for all occasions up until the mid 1500s.

The Tengahan Wukir is:
○ stanzaic, can be written in any number of 9 line stanzas.
○ syllabic, 10-6-8-7-8-8-8-8-8 syllables per line.
○ composed in a pattern of vowel sounds in the end syllable, not necessarily rhyme. Vowel sounds pattern, u-e-i-u-u-e-u-a-a.

Pasted from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

I could find NO EXAMPLE online, so I won’t try to resuscitate this form.

Taylor

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• The Taylor is an invented form, patterned from Upon a Spider Catching a Fly by Edward Taylor (1642-1729) who some call the finest colonial poet although his work was not published until 1939. A puritan poet, his poems are lyrical and yet reflect a staunch Calvinist tone.

The Taylor is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of cinquains.
○ metric, iambic, L1 trimeter, L2 and L4 dimeter, L3 tetrameter, L5 monometer.
○ rhymed or at least near rhymed ababb cdcdd efeff etc.

Upon a Spider Catching a Fly by Edward Taylor

Thou sorrow, venom elf.
Is this thy play,
To spin a web out of thyself
To catch a fly?
For why?

I saw a pettish wasp
Fall foul therein,
Whom yet thy whorl pins did not clasp
Lest he should fling
His sting.

But as afraid, remote
Didst stand here at
And with thy little fingers stroke
And gently tap
His back.

Thus gently him didst treat
Lest he should pet,
And in a froppish waspish heat
Should greatly fret
Thy net.

Whereas the silly fly,
Caught by its leg,
Thou by the throat took’st hastily
And ‘hind the head
Bite dead.

This goes to pot, that not
Nature doth call.
Strive not above what strength hath got
Lest in the brawl
Thou fall.

This fray seems thus to us:
Hell’s spider gets
His entrails spun to whipcords’ thus,
And wove to nets
And sets,

To tangle Adam’s race
In’s stratagems
To their destructions, spoiled, made base
By venom things,
Damned sins.

But mighty, gracious Lord,
Communicate
Thy grace to break the cord; afford
Us glory’s gate
And state.

We’ll Nightingale sing like,
When perched on high
In glory’s cage, Thy glory, bright,
And thankfully,
For joy.

Pasted from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My Example

Form: Taylor

Broken Names

I have a friend named Jack,
his brother’s Al.
Their mother wants her old name back
to boost locale
morale.

Since Ackbarr’s now her name
she thinks it’s broken,
perverted by the Islam game
when it’s a token
spoken.

One can’t now yell, “Hi, Jack”
most any where
nor “Allen Ackbarr, glad you’re back!
You been somewhere
by air?”

© Lawrencealot – January 26, 2015

Visual Template

Roundabout

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Our Poetic Asides inaugural Poet Laureate, Sara Diane Doyle, has been busy-busy-busy this summer working with teen writers. But not too busy to share with her fellow Poetic Asides crew a new poetic form she developed with one of her students, David Edwards. Since Sara knows the form best, I’ll let her explain the form to you in her own words.
*****
A few months ago I began exploring various poetic forms. With each form I tried, I would post my attempt on a forum for teen writers, where I am a mentor. One of the teens, David Edwards, got interested in forms, especially the “created” forms. He asked if anyone could invent a form and I said “sure!” Then, he got the crazy idea that we should create a form together.
 
To start, we wanted to throw in every poetic element that we really liked. David came up with the meter and feet and I added in the repeating line. We came up with the rhyme scheme and length together. The result is a form we call the Roundabout. In this form, the rhyme scheme comes full circle while offering repetition of one line in each rhyme set. 
 
The Roundabout is a four stanza poem, with each stanza consisting of 5 lines. The poem is written in iambic and the lines have 4 feet, 3 feet, 2 feet, 2 feet and 3 feet respectively. The rhyme scheme is abccb/bcddc/cdaad/dabba. Roundabouts can be on any subject. 
 
Several of the writers on our forum have written Roundabouts and have had a blast.” We would love for other poets to give it a try! Here are some examples to get you started.
 
Crash
by David Edwards
 
Around around the carousel
across the circles face
we cry we shout
we crash about
across the circles face
 
and ever always breakneck pace
by this unending route
and twists and turns
and breaks and burns
by this unending route
 
of ever always in and out
the yearling quickly learns
to run and yell
at ocean’s swell
the yearling quickly learns
 
to run and leap and then he earns
but he will never tell
there’s not a chase
that wins the race
but he will never tell.
 
 
 
When Spring Trips ‘Round
by Sara Diane Doyle
 
When wildflowers bloom once more
and raindrops touch the earth,
the faeries come
to start the hum
and raindrops touch the earth!
 
Come join the song, the dance the mirth!
Enjoy the juicy plum.
beneath the sun
’til day is done-
enjoy the juicy plum!
 
The clouds let out the beating drum-
rejoice with us as one.
Our joy we pour
for pain we bore-
rejoice with us as one.
 
Of gleeful hope, the snow knows none,
but speaks of faeries lore,
of magic birth,
the greatest worth
but speaks of faeries lore.

Pasted from http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/poetry-craft-tips/new-poetic-form-the-roundabout
My Thanks to Poetic-Asides.

Specifications restated:
Roundabout is:
A 20 line poem, attributed to David Edwards
Stanzaic: Consisting of 4 five-line stanza
Metered: Iambic with feet of 4/3/2/2/3 per line
Rhyme Scheme: aBccB bCddC cDaaD dAbbA
Refrain: L2 is repeated as L5 in each stanza

My example

Roundabout

Roundabout (Roundabout)

The driver thought he’d save some time.
although the sign said no.
he’d always say
he knew the way
although the sign said no.

His load was long but even so
’twas shorter this-a-way.
He drove enough
and knew his stuff —
’twas shorter this-a-way.

He shrugged and said “I’ll be okay”,
he put the truck in gear.
He took his time
and did the crime;
he put the truck in gear.

Half through the loop, he could not clear;
it cost him many dime
to learn what’s so;
when he could go
it cost him many dime.

© Lawrencealot – January 20, 2015

Photo credit: taken by poet.

Visual template

Roundabout

Rick's 32

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Ricks 32: Created by Erich J. Goller.
8 lines Rhymes or unrhymed.
Two or more stanzas. Any subject.
Syllable Count: 3-4-3-6-6-3-4-3.

Speculations

3 After dream
4 a bad nightmare
3 terrified.
6 in unbearable stretch
6 of a parallel life?
3 Life spark in
4 consensual
3 space/time place?
3 I wonder
4 will I ever
3 extinguish
6 sentience, endless lives?
6 travel through dimensions?
3 multiverse?
4 any respite?
3 wake with joy?

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

Specifications restated:
Rick’s 32 is:
Stanzaic, consisting of 2 or more stanzas,
Syllabic: 3/4/3/6/6/3/4/3
Rhyme is optional
Presentation is optional, centered or not.

My example

Captive (Form: Rick’s 32)

Disregard
all of the rules
consider
only your own desires.
Pity those silly fools
anguishing
in church classes
and in schools.

Methamphet 
produces highs,
contentment’s
almost guaranteed. You’ll
feel that you’re a winner.
You’ll lose teeth,
and yes indeed,
be thinner.

No one else
can pull your strings.
Your lover’s
perfect; he enables
until he see the cost.
If he balks
he knows certain,
your love’s lost.

© Lawrencealot – January 17, 2015

Choriambic dactylic fusion

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This is a complex accentual-syllabic form invented by Glenn Meisenheimer writing on Allpoetry.com as gmcookie.

The Choriambic dactylic fusion is:
Stanzaic, consisting of any number of quatrains.
Each stanza is rhymed: (a/a)x(b/b)x, where x is unrhymed, and the letters
within parentheses indicate internal rhyme with the end word.
Each stanza is metered:
L1 and L1 are choriambic dimeter. A choriamb is a trochee followed by an iamb, thus DUM da da DUM.
L2 is catelectic dactylic tetrameter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da ^]
* catalectic:  (kăt′l-ĕk′tĭk) adj.  adj. Lacking one or more syllables especially in the final foot.
L4 is catelectic dactylic trimeter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM ^ ^]

This should all be made clear by the visual template below.

Here is the inventor’s first poem using this form:

Goblins

Pounding away day after day,
Prying the gold from the heart of the mountain,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

When it gets dark time to embark,
Crawling from holes to the moon lighted surface,
Patter of feet, hunting for meat,
Deep in the darkening woods.

Man child is best, troublesome pest,
Juicy and tender when stewed or when roasted,
Rabbits are nice, deer will suffice,
Partridge or grouses will too.

Then they are gone just before dawn
Scurrying back to their home in the darkness,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

Pasted from <http://allpoetry.com/poem/11855944-Goblins-by-gmcookie>

My example

Gallivanting (Form: Choriambic dactylic fusion)

Riding the rails, sleeping in jails
youth was misspent if consensus is taken.
Sleeping in tents, riding the fence
these were the acts that he loved.

Going on hikes, riding on bikes
Travel was far more important than where to.
Seeing how life coped with it’s strife,
building himself on the fly.

Seas that he’d sail hunting for whale
toughened him up and exposed him to drinking,
planning to chase ladies in lace,
gambling with dice and with cards.

Hunting for gold, campsites were cold
metals he learned to decipher by looking.
Scattered around, wonders were found
When and wherever he went.

Filled up with life, finding a wife
knowing the place where he started was dandy,
he raised some kids, yep, that he did
here at the end of the line.

© Lawrencealot – January 15, 2015

Visual template

Choriambic dactylic fusion

Fibroquatro

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Fibroquatro: Three stanzas of a Fibonacci and a quatrain rhyming stanza of 4 lines a-b-a-b

Variation # 1: 1st stanza 1-1-2-3-5-8 Fibonacci count.
Second stanza a basic quatrain.
Line 2 and 4 same syllable count with an a-b-a-b rhyming scheme.

Variation #2 :1st stanza 13-8-5-3-2-1-1,
2nd stanza: 16-16-16-16-16 syllable count with rhyme scheme a-b-a-b.
3rd stanza 1-1-2-3-5-8-13 syllables of Fibonacci.

Variation #3: 1st stanza: 1-1-2-3-5-8-13 syllable Fib.
2nd stanza 15-13-15-13. 1st and 3rd and 2nd and 4th same syllable count. Must rhyme a-b-a-b.
3rd stanza inverted Fib–13-8-5-3-2-1-1.

Fibroquatro
I Will Be Old
1 I
1 will
2 be old
3 when I’m not
5 against injustice
8 and not uplifted by art

1 I
1 will
2 be old
3 when body
5 won’t work, my mind won’t
8 quirk, my spirit becomes murky.

1 I
1 will
2 be old
3 when I feel
5 negativity
8 dragging me down, making me grave.

a I will be old when I can’t create
b or feel discovery’s delight,
a when I can’t anticipate
b the world will be all right.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

*Fibonacci sequence 
The sequence of numbers, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, … , 
in which each successive number is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers.

Related Poetry Forms: Fib Diamond, Fib Series, Fibonacci Spiral, Fiboquatro, Haven Fire

My Example

I Am Now Old  (Form: Fibquatro)

I
am
now old
and I am
against injustice
and still uplifted by art.

I
am
now old
my body’s
showing signs of age;
but my spirit’s not lost a step.

I
may
be old
but I refuse
negativity
to stake a claim while I’m alive.

While days are here to be enjoyed
and people still will talk with me
and I’ve more poems to be deployed
I’ll eat donuts and drink Chablis.

© Lawrencealot – December 24, 2014