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[personal profile] avevale_intelligencer
So Harper, laying by her gilded lyre,
Bade the nine sisters take a day of ease
And where they wontedly did her inspire
Gave o'er herself to earthly poesies.
But I, whose muse is old and apt to tire,
Whose store of verse is scant, whose wit doth seize
On singèd fragments reft from fashion's fire
Half burnt, whose cup is drained unto the lees,
Can do no less than that I do alway,
My best scarce good enough for Doggerel Day.

Date: 2007-11-28 01:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-gwenzilliad.livejournal.com
*HUG*

Thank you. :-D

Date: 2007-11-28 02:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-gwenzilliad.livejournal.com
Whenever I think I'm not good enough,
I ruminate upon my wealth of friends
Who're not afraid to fill my screen with fluff
Or send my iambs, lines with lovely ends.
And if their verses seem more coarse or rough
Than other effort rises and ascends,
I know true love can sing from voices gruff
As well as from a pen genius transcends.
You are a poem. When you write to me,
I know that poems should not mean, but be.

(With apologies to Archibald MacLeish)

*hugs*
Edited Date: 2007-11-28 02:29 pm (UTC)

Date: 2007-11-28 03:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickgloucester.livejournal.com
You are a poem. When you write to me,
I know that poems should not mean, but be.

That's lovely!

Date: 2007-11-28 03:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickgloucester.livejournal.com
So I, with creaking wit and feeble pen,
Inspired to emulate the facile words of others,
Attempt, 'twixt daily drudge and writer's burning yen
To set down marvels, thus to 'scape the confined lot of mothers
By scouring out the brainpan long neglected
In hope of finding light where lingers gloomy murk –
I find the inner household as I half suspected:
A mire of nothing much where half-baked ravings lurk.
Alas! In peroration's mighty thrall
An epigrammatic lackwit – and that's all.

Date: 2007-11-29 11:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bigjobhagmissy.livejournal.com
I have a hazy recollection this form has a name. Before I (possibly) attempt it can you remind me, thanks.

Date: 2007-11-29 11:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zanda-myrande.livejournal.com
*looks for well-thumbed copy of Frances Stillman and as frodding usual can't find it*

Sorry. I used to know it.

Date: 2007-11-30 10:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickgloucester.livejournal.com
If there were four more lines before the final couplet, it'd be a sonnet. But there aren't. So it isn't.

I know sonnets, Spenserian stanzas, blank verse, heroic whatnot (popular in the eighteenth century, therefore usually boring), limericks, the sort of doggerel favoured by Skelton, and er.... Bugger, this is embarrassing. Zander, put me out of my misery. Find your book.

My memory is a very efficient filing system. Anything not of immediate use is generally put somewhere very, very, very safe. And never sees the light of day again.

Date: 2007-11-30 11:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zanda-myrande.livejournal.com
Oh. I thought [livejournal.com profile] bigjobhagmissy meant the metre, with each line in a quatrain growing an extra foot. I found the book, but couldn't find any reference to that, which is bugging me now because I could have sworn I knew the name for it.

I don't know that a ten-line stanza rhyming ababababcc has a name. I'll have a look though.
Edited Date: 2007-11-30 11:43 pm (UTC)

Date: 2007-12-01 08:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickgloucester.livejournal.com
Hmmm. I was aiming for iambic pentameter. If you push har enough, you'll see I'm just about there!

Date: 2007-12-01 09:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zanda-myrande.livejournal.com
Oh gods, I'm sorry. I feel like a complete idiot.

*searches for somewhere to put face*

Date: 2007-12-01 02:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dickgloucester.livejournal.com
The front of the head is usually quite a good place.

I'm not sure my pentameters come out exactly right - it depends how one reads it, and whether one is squinting. So I'm not about to start being sensitive about them. Now, if you had said anything about my comma usage...

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