This week, YOU pick the form. Write a poem using your favorite form. Try a form you’ve wanted to attempt. Take the challenge of writing a form that scares you (sestina). Either way, write your poem, giving the name of form and a brief description of it so others may be enticed to write. Have fun and explore.
Marie’s Form:
I chose the Nonet. I cheated, as this is one I wrote back in May of 2010.
Here are the Nonet rules:
A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second line eight syllables, the third line seven syllables, etc., until line nine, which finishes with one syllable. It can be on any subject and rhyming is optional.
AFTERGLOW
(Nonet)
As the sun slips beneath the water,
Her afterglow lingers above -
Much to wooing moon’s delight.
And they bask in the glow
Those fleeting moments
They call their own,
As their hearts
Become
One
Walt’s Form:
Created about twenty years ago by an Arkansas poet named Etheree Taylor Armstrong, this titled form, the Etheree, consists of ten lines of unmetered and unrhymed verse, the first line having one syllable, each succeeding line adding a syllable, with the total syllable count being fifty-five. I too cheated. An older poem.
STRETCHED THIN
Dad.
A man
Standing guard.
Despite efforts
To be fair and firm,
Sometimes he folds under
The pressure. Bright hazel eyes
Flash their semaphore to signal
The next barrage to a father’s heart.
Daughters in tug of war for Dad’s favor.
