Friday Writing Essentials: Vent Your Gather Frustration in Verse

Are you fed up with Gather glitches?  Had it up to here (points to his forehead) with slow-downs, publishing nightmares and connecting problems?  Do you find yourself yelling at your computer as if it were a Boston driver cutting you off on Yawkey Avenue?  If so, here’s your shot at retribution.  Or bloodletting, steam-blowing or just plain old-fashioned pick your poison.  Any way you look at it, there’s no better way to diffuse tension then to write a three-line haiku or a five-line limerick or even a two-line rhymed couplet.  Either give us a drive-by poem in the comment thread below, or get fancy and publish a poem in an article directly to the Writing Essentials group.  I’ll read all of them and promise to comment on each one.  As well, I’ll feature four of the top poems throughout the day on the group's homepage. 

Haiku (click here for more on haiku)

A three-line poem, typically with 17 beats (or syllables) in a 5-7-5 structure.  Haiku is one of the oldest forms of poetry, dating back to the mid 1400’s in Japan.  Haikus offer sensual, often tongue-in-cheek language, packed into a small bundle.  If you can, try to make each sentence stand alone on its own powerful image, with a turn after the first or second line denoting a change of quality or understanding.

Wistful wife, Gather

Gloom in her eyes at sunset

Blank looks at sunrise.

Limericks (click here for more on limericks)

A five-line poem, usually humorous, with a rhyme scheme of A-A-B-B-A.  Classically, a limerick will feature three “metrical feet” in the first, second and fifth lines, balanced by two metrical feet in the third and fourth lines.  To illustrate metrical feet, just imagine a weighted or stressed syllable or word in a small group of non-weighted words.  For example, in the common opening line, “There once was a lady from Hartford” (or wherever), you can see the stressed feet in bold.

There once was a Boston romantic

Who ran a blog on the Atlantic;

It grew with such speed,

It may only succeed,

In teaching us to wax pedantic.

Couplets (click here for more on couplets)

A couplet is, quite simply, a pair of lines in a poem.  Traditionally (as in much of Chaucer), the couplet is rhymed.  Often, couplets are remembered as aphorisms or recognizable excerpts from famous poems.  One of my personal favorites is a couplet from Robert Frost’s incomparable poem, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, which has the following as its opening two lines:  “Whose woods these are I think I know/His house is in the village though.”

Gather is a fickle lady

Her blackouts a little shady.   

-------------------------------------------

Written by Edward Nudelman, who is also a Books Correspondent for Gather:  POETRY CENTRAL

Keep up with Ed’s other posting and Gather activity by joining his Gather network-just click here and select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page.  If you are interested in my background or qualifications, I invite you to read my profile which has information concerning my published writings.