2010-11-02

Lesson 3
Write five pairs of blank verse in iambic pentameter end stopped.
Write the pairs again with enjambment & include at least two caesuras per pair.

Part 1

1. The breeze stirs the leaves and rings the chimes soft
   Grey and cool is this day of november.
2. Hot and chewy pumpkin curry cookies
   creamy latte of caramel and spice.
3. Deep sighs and deeper in past muscle's heat
   Dripping in need while moving with passion
4. Attic to insulate and clothes to pack
   Laundry to wash and writing to complete
5. Waist too full and lacking definition
   Jiggling flesh too soft and yielding to bare

Part 2

1. Stirring the leaves, the breeze rings the chimes soft
   under the grey sky, bringing the damp chill.
2. I long for hot, chewy, pumpkin cookies
   melding with spicy caramel latte.
3. Descending deep, past muscle's heat,
   with a passionate and sighing release.
4. An attic to insulate, and to pack
   with clothes, before laundry can be finished.
5. Full, jiggling flesh, too soft to bare
   to the mirror's too critical response.

2010-10-31

Lesson 2
Write 20 lines of verse in iambic pentameter.

My wife thinks she has al the answers now.

This page is short and make me squish my my text.

Letters, numbers, symbols, alight my brain.

And yet these lines of verse are all the same.

I feel like marching on right down the page.

Rhyming seems so childish to me today.

That was hard to work through to find the words.

The heartbeat of this metre can be heard.

At times I hate the rhythm and the rhyme.

Scratching through my lines makes me hate this task.

I swear this will not be the first or last.

Focusing on metre instead of rhyme

Is a a struggle to make sense of tempo.

To hear the rise and fall of metric flow.

Down the page I fight to take iambic verse.

Wife's impatient for me to reach the end.

So we can walk and take pictures again.

She interrupts and distracts me a lot.

Two more lines to write seems a lot to go.

Impatience is unkind and so I go.

The Ode Less Travelled

Having begun The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry, I find myself wanting to blog my journey through the written word.

Without further delay -- let the painful poetry practice begin.