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Tanka Poetry Analysis
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Landscape at Twilight by matthewjcward Trickle of honey, sensual, down. Dripped magenta brush-stroke static, down. Scene crepuscular, set down. Lavender nectar; sun drown. So, this is a tanka written by a member of my YouTube audience. You might be wondering, what is a tanka? Well, it’s actually quite similar to a form you’re likely very familiar with—haiku. Where a haiku in the western tradition has a syllable pattern of five-seven-five,
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the tanka is made up of five lines with a syllable pattern of five-seven-five-seven-seven, giving a total of 31 syllables. So, basically, a tanka is a haiku for people who are too long-winded, like me. And before you pedants get it in a twist, that was a joke, obviously haiku and tanka serve different functions. But anyway; looking at matthew’s tanka here, we do indeed have 31 syllables, if you pronounce sensual with only two syllables, which I don’t, but I’m gonna
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give matthew a pass here. matthew’s tanka is also interesting for its use of repetition. The word “down” appears in lines two, three, and four, and is then subverted by the word drown as the poem’s final line. It’s a pretty neat bait and switch if you ask me, especially since “sundown” is such a cliché. “Sun drown” is far more interesting. As far as interpretations go, I think the title pretty much encapsulates the poem. It really is
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a landscape at twilight. The words “magenta” and “lavender” truly describe the sun in the act of “drowning” down the horizon. I think there is, perhaps, also an interpretation of this poem that’s more, as the poem itself says, “sensual.” This tanka could be in the long tradition of tankas as pieces of passion. As the Academy of American Poets explains, tankas often encompass themes of love, sometimes clandestine love. But still, I do think matthew’s piece here is more
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an appreciation of nature, even if it can also be read from the perspective of clandestine lovers. One thing that matthew’s tanka is arguably missing would be a volta, a moment, word, or image in the poem that serves as a turn, or a shift in perspective of narrative. In a way, the last word of the poem feels like the turn, but that’s kind of too late for a traditional volta. Even so, I actually don’t really count that as a fault against the poem. Like, yeah,
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it’s always fun to try and spot a volta, but I personally don’t think it takes away from what makes this poem interesting—the sound and the language. And hey, I might be wrong. Maybe there is a turn here and I’m just missing it. If you weren’t aware, matthew’s poem here comes from a community post I made recently. April is National Poetry Month and so I wanted to give you all the opportunity to write something you might
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not otherwise. The prompt demanded you write in one of these specific forms: ghazal, tanka, villanelle, pantoum, sestina, or sonnet. I also required responders to use at least six of these ten words: magenta, trickle, crepuscular, rabid, flotsam, honey, static, sensual, genuine, bijou. And, as viewers noted, I misspelled the word “poem” as “pom.” So, with all that in mind, let’s take a look at some of these poms to get ourselves more acquainted with some traditional
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poetic forms. Even if you mostly write in free verse, as I often do, it always helps to read and write specific forms. Doing so presents a challenge for us as poets and, as is the case with all poetry, we learn to appreciate language a little more when we challenge ourselves. The poems of each form I’ve chosen to give my thoughts on were picked completely randomly. And while I can’t thoroughly dissect all of your poems in the way you all deserve, I will
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show everyone who submitted and give a shoutout. I would encourage you, viewer, to read all the poems presented here. I did and it was kind of like reading a little chapbook anthology. It was fun. As for the tankas, TheDrex1988 submitted this one, “The lost steps,” inspired by Alejo Carpentier, which I also love for its sound, and meohmyemosca submitted a series of four tankas all titled “self diagnosed cotard’s
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syndrome,” and I absolutely adore the imagery here. All of these tankas were very well done. With that, let’s move onto ghazals. As per the poetry foundation, the ghazal is an originally Arabic form made up of couplets. Every couplet ends on the same word or phrase, the radif, and is preceded by a rhyming word or phrase, the qafia. In the first couplet, the radif is used twice. As an example, here is “Iram of The Pillars” by arasbali9151
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The golden day simmers like hot honey there in the sands, But the magenta sky falls, cooling the air in the sands. Elusive and rarely recorded is love, like the great Crepuscular city of Iram, somewhere in the sands. Renowned explorers search for wealth and sensual women But they find nothing, so they shovel elsewhere in the sands. The genuine heart knows the desert is not static, and Waiting out the winds will make aware treasure in the sands.
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One day, I dug for flakes of gold or a humble bijou But I found You, my Iram, an answered prayer in the sands. So, clearly, our radif is “in the sands,” while our qafias include “there,” “air,” “somewhere,” “elsewhere,” “treasure,” and “prayer.” You might say “treasure” is a bit of a stretch, and that using “somewhere” and “elsewhere” is kind of cheating, but I say ghazals are hard enough, so this all passes for me.
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Somehow, it wasn’t until editing this video that I realized the word “aware” is supposed to be the qafia on line eight, not “treasure.” I don’t know how it took me so long to see that. I guess, technically, “aware” should come right before the radif here, but eh, it is what it is. Now, as far as the content of the poem goes, Iram is a lost city named in the Quran. In the literal sense, on the poem’s face, we certainly can read this as the speaker’s very real search
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for the city of Iram. But I think the poem is more metaphorical than that. The last couplet is what keys me in most. If a person went digging and found this mythical lost city, that would be an even better find than gold or gems, don’t you think? But the speaker doesn’t seem to talk about it that way. Iram, for the speaker, is a less monetary find, but a more sentimental one. The second stanza also says, “Elusive and rarely recorded is love,
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like the great / Crepuscular city of Iram.” I’m wondering if this is a love poem disguised as a desert search, and if Iram is a stand-in for a person whom the speaker loves. And in the end, I feel the piece delivers a message of hope and positive karma. If you look for riches or for the sensual, you will not find it, but if you look for something more personally meaningful, you absolutely will, even though the
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sands stretch far. And maybe it’s just because this is a poem that takes place in the desert, but I also can’t help but be reminded of “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, another poem about a civilization that once was. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if this poem was in dialogue with that one, suggesting that while empires fall, it’s the personal things that matter. But at the same time, arasbali’s poem works even without having read “Ozymandias.”
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The poem also communicates the idea of patience. Just take a look at that penultimate stanza again. It feels like the speaker is saying, Yeah, you might not ever find riches, but if you just wait a little while longer, you’ll find something even better. If I were to offer some critique, I would first say that the third from the last line reads kind of awkwardly. “Waiting out the winds will make aware
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treasure in the sands.” I understand what it’s getting at, but I think it could be smoother, ya know? Also, arasbali, if you wanted to take another crack at this, I would say give even more attention to the imagery. The desert, the people, the finding of Iram—I think you could elevate those visuals all the more. That said, this is still quite good as is. I don’t think you’d have to change much to get it published somewhere. But what do I know?
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As for our other ghazals, king_tutankhamun submitted a very intriguing piece whose meaning is clear in surprisingly few words. It’s also a great celebration of Titanic month on top of poetry month. Mike K. produced a super fascinating piece that combines many allusions with uniquely-placed modern-day slang. And even though some of the lines aren’t end-stopped like traditional ghazals, I liked the enjambment. Mike also wrote, “YouTube comments are digital
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graffiti,” which I think is such a fun take. Merit-Amun wrote in rhyming couplets rather than the traditional ghazal rhyme scheme and made a poem that is a beautiful tribute to devotion, as much as it is a tribute to a real person, I imagine. And considering English isn’t the author’s first language—wow. And parallelDexter wrote a piece that shows a clear command of rhythm, sound, and internal rhyme. It’s very satisfying to read aloud, if you ask me.
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But with that, our next form will be villanelles. Villanelles are made up of six stanzas. The first five are all tercets and the last is a quatrain. The first and third line of the first stanza repeat throughout the poem, and it’s made up of an ABAABA rhyme scheme. Some villanelles have a specific meter, like iambic pentameter, but it’s not a requirement. Here is “The Jazzists” by @ImaginaryTable7 as an example:
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A pause. Their breathing fills the space. Cloaked in blues and magenta hues, A saxophonist starts to play. Sensual notes pour from the stage, Tone oozin’ silken honey smooth, A pause. Hushed breathing fills the space. As one last groan bends, curls, escapes The horn and trickles towards the roof, A saxophonist starts to play An elk shriek into rabid scales Avalanching across the room Frenetic breathing fills the space Fingers blur, the horn obeys But just before a sonic boom
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A saxophonist starts to play: Choreographed dips, turns and sways Through the crepuscular dance floor. They pause. Their breathing fills the space. The saxophonists start to play. This is a lot of fun, and personally, I don’t mind all the slant rhymes. In a fun way, it actually makes the poem feel more like jazz. And similar to the first tanka we looked at, it seems this poem is most interested in creating a scene for the reader, trying to evoke the
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feeling of being at a certain place at a certain time, and there’s definitely value in that. ImaginaryTable has also opted to vary the repeated lines, not unlike Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.” I think there’s another layer of humor, too, in that the repeated lines—the pause and the saxophonist—seem constantly at odds with each other. It’s like the saxophone is not only interrupting the pause, but interrupting everything. But then again, maybe that’s just jazz. I do also want to
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point out the use of internal rhyme in the second and fifth lines. Very nice. If I were to offer some critique on this poem, I would personally like to know why the author of the poem wanted to place us here. I assume it’s because jazz is meaningful to them, but I want an even greater sense of that. If we look at villanelles like Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” or Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” it’s often in the
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last stanza where the poem kind of gives the game away—where the speakers reveal the cause of their emotional upheaval—why they’re even writing the poem in the first place. Granted, obviously not every villanelle needs to be the same, and I still very much appreciate “The Jazzists” for its humor and vividness. Meanwhile, marinusvandeventer wrote a villanelle with some delightful wordplay and truly enrapturing diction. Also, love the worm emoji in this
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text before the poem. hatchetart’s villanelle had its own play on the rhyme scheme, which I thought was very interesting, as was the content. harrisonhurst’s piece was deceptively simple and highly philosophical, with a neat story in there to boot, and I love a long title such as this one. cardboard.box27’s villanelle probably featured my favorite rhymes of the bunch, and I appreciated using a couple of the assigned words as the repeating rhymes,
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very clever. Stoatmaster’s piece was both darkly comedic and highly relatable. Love that username, by the way. kyxash submitted a piece with an interesting double meaning as both a commentary on art and an exploration of jealousy. What Z Creates wrote a piece with some striking imagery, each image closing one door while opening another. A lot of villanelles! Really cool to see. Next up would be the pantoums. In a pantoum,
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every stanza is made up of four lines. The trick of it is that the second and fourth line of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next. clyde.the.stinky’s poem, “Like Honey in July,” reads: Like honey in July You ran down the height of a tree Flies, like flotsam, speckled the trail Summer static pervaded the day You ran down, the height of a tree, I, still, watched from the window Summer static pervaded the day Crushed magenta petals sat in my locket
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I still watched from the window The stench of rot, a genuine bijou– Crushed magenta petals sat in my locket, Stuck and unwanted The stench of rot, a genuine bijou Flies, like flotsam, speckled the trail Stuck and unwanted Like honey in July Great example of how the poem’s beginning wraps around to its end. I also like how clyde uses punctuation to make some of these repetitions more unique or fit in their new context. There are some
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very interesting images here. When the speaker says, “You ran down the height of a tree,” I assume they mean a squirrel, but I suppose it could be a human. In either case, the speaker clearly longs to be in the runner’s position, but instead remains stuck behind a window. I also love “Crushed magenta petals sat in my locket.” What a fascinating line; very strong image there. But if I had to be a pedant, I would ask if honey in July is truly something you could
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describe as unwanted. If we mean honey on the trees, then maybe, seeing as whoever’s running down the tree wouldn’t want to get honey on them, in theory at least. But like, if we’re just talking about honey generally, why not have some in July? Good a time as ever, no? I don’t know, I’m not much of a honey guy, so correct me if I’m wrong. The word stuck fits a little better as honey is, well, sticky. It can literally get stuck in places, even in a jar.
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Of course, clyde acknowledged that this is a rough draft, and I would kind of like to see some expansion here and there. Like the villanelle we looked at, I do wonder a little more about the speaker. I like the glimpses I get into their life here, and yet I feel there’s just a little bit more context we could receive to tie things together all the tighter. All of the pantoums submitted varied in line length, which is neat. roua wrote a pantoum
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with some rhyme in the repeated phrases, which is always appreciated. I love the portrait of the couple this pantoum paints. snailflowers’s piece was dotted with specific details that totally piqued my interest, in contrast to some of the more nebulously poetic lines. CruzHagen wrote the shortest pantoum of the bunch but I honestly think its sweetness really flourishes in its brevity. The way the last line of the second stanza is recontextualized in the penultimate
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line especially tickles me. cloudywish’s pantoum took one phrase and made it the crux of the poem, repeating it even more than was necessary. The figurative language here is very strong for someone who says they’re not experienced with poetry. And nickktastic’s pantoum was also a rhyming one, which is always to die for, with lines that had a lot of room to breathe. That’ll move us into sestinas, which are very long by nature. The thrust of the sestina is a
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set of six words. Every stanza is six lines, and thus, each line ends with one of the six words, except for the last stanza which is only three lines long and uses two of the six words per line. Here is how the words should be ordered in each stanza at the end of each line. And, as an example, here is “the magenta man has no clothes” by thisisanexonym: we have three different cones in our eyes, lose the green one and all you'll see is magenta,
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an electromagnetic trickle into the senses that someone rabid likes to christen as "art"... ...it's a matter of circumstance that we share a pretty hallucination called color. we often weigh the status of people by their color, and that makes status as genuine as our eyes. i once got to see a victim to circumstance, he could afford to dye his clothes magenta... i once heard him speak of his life as an "art", while making it a mission to dull his own senses.
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the noble cursed the sensual and lost his own senses, from hearing to touch and finally color... a silent, numb, black and white film wrapped around his "art" and it made me want to cover my eyes. he saw grey where i saw him magenta and it made us both curse his circumstance. he marched into town with his pomp and circumstance; a bear smelling honey and losing its senses. he tried finding blue to dye his magenta but his whole world had lost its color.
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he cursed his own eyes, he yearned to dive into his "art"... but the noble was far from "art", when the genuine art was his circumstance, and it wasn't meant for his eyes... a trickle of drinks dulled the rest of his senses. it made him numb to the loss of his color while he clutched to his clothes dyed magenta... blue clothes were worth more than magenta, and this was key to his "art", but all this was a hallucination of color and a matter of circumstance...
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and when he regained his senses he finally opened his eyes the noble untangled color from circumstance, tossed away his magenta with all of his "art", and with his newfound senses he made a feast for the eyes. One thing that immediately catches my eye here is the word “art” consistently written in quotation marks. The author could’ve just used the word art, but no, the quotation marks remained, which I feel added to the challenge in writing this piece, and I think that’s neat!
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The poem, to me, seems to be commenting on prejudice and its relationship with art. The line, “we often weigh the status of people by their color” feels clear in its meaning—in the context of the poem, but also in the context of our real world. The magenta man in the poem was narrow-minded, and it was only when he untangled color from circumstance, as the last stanza says, that he regained his senses,
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and was able to create something that was truly a feast for the eyes. Indeed, narrow-mindedness doesn’t pair well with artistry. The artist needs a curious mind, and one that’s open to change. With that in mind, we can also look at the poem as a commentary on an artist’s own willingness to change. Similar to narrow-mindedness, stubbornness isn’t always helpful for an artist. An unwillingness to change
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or to take a new perspective can’t be good for one’s art. In the context of writing, that would be like creating pieces but never editing them. Sure, you might come up with some decent stuff that way, but it’s usually in the edit where pieces really start to take shape. It’s also worth noting that the poem, as made clear by the title, is in dialogue with the folktale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a story about a monarch who’s tricked because
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he wants to be perceived as intelligent. It’s almost like the poem is also saying that once the magenta man stops worrying about perception, then he can truly be an artist. There were two other sestinas submitted. This one from Isabella Taylor is notable for its line length. These lines are quite a bit shorter than the average sestina, which is neat. Isabella also used the words from the prompt as the six repeating words, which also must’ve added to the
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challenge. I love all the charged language in this poem. It’s a fascinating read. And, interestingly, the sestina submitted by pomegranatepixie also had to do with creating art. Specifically, this one is more about the relationship between art and pain, which is pretty much always an interesting topic to me. This one also used some of the assigned words as the repetitions. And lastly, that’ll take us into the sonnet, the category that had ten whole submissions!
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Which is awesome, because I love writing sonnets. The defining feature of a sonnet is its 14 lines. You’re probably most familiar with the Shakespearean sonnet, which uses iambic pentameter and has an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, but there’s also the Petrarchan sonnet, divided into the octave and the sestet, with the rhyme scheme going ABBABBA CDCDCD or CDECDE. There’s also the American sonnet which is basically just 14 lines of free verse, but that seemed too easy
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and I wanted to challenge you all. The last sonnet I allowed was the Spenserian sonnet, with a rhyme scheme of ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. Here’s an example from Our_Deer_Lord—spelled d-e-e-r. “Beneath the Bay” As tender twilight delicately falls, Magenta cast through net of briny blue, And filters through our rusted coffin walls Illuminating sunken lovers two So sensual the limelight doth renew Crepuscular beauty from heav'n on high That surely did a blessed angel hew
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And set citrine within your honey eye That from the raging water keeps me dry For though our static world is cold and drowned With flotsam clouds a-sail on tempest sky And kept we are from seeing hallowed ground I shall not ever weep, nor moan, nor sigh While warm eternity we pass away Interred in loving arms, beneath the bay I enjoy poems like these—that take such unique perspectives. Framing the poem from the point of
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view of a couple at the bottom of a lake? Morbid, for sure, but creative, and with a positive twist, all things considered. I will say, the language is perhaps a little too archaic for my tastes, but that really is just a matter of personal preference. Granted, as with some of the other poems we’ve looked at working in meter and rhyme, some of the phrasing here sounds a little awkward, at least to my ear. For example, line 12:
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“And kept we are from seeing hallowed ground.” Maybe that fits tonally, but I think “And we are kept from seeing hallowed ground” functions just as well while reading more smoothly. Also, something else that did not occur to me until editing, this sonnet actually has 15 lines. I seriously don’t know how I didn’t catch that before. In thinking about it now, the 13th line did feel slightly out of place in terms of the rhyme scheme,
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but it’s actually kind of a testament to the poem’s integrity that I didn’t think about it any further. Then again, maybe I’m just a lil dummy. But I’ll be very interested to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this one. As for our other nine sonnets, wholesky wrote a piece that I thought played with winter in a fun way. I quite liked the enjambment here, as well as the “above/groove” rhyme. Very Shakespearean.
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dryamontillado’s sonnet had a nice volta from a very poetic landscape setting to an indoor setting shared between lovers. 1.36125 said this was their first swing at a Petrarchan sonnet, and it turned out great. I thought the rhythm and rhyme were on point, and the poem presents interesting ruminations on belief and existence. depoetapoco wrote a sonnet with extra lines called “estrambote” in the Spanish tradition, and crafted a darkly contemplative piece.
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depoetapoco mentioned a worry that their English wasn’t good enough. I assure you, it’s good enough, and the fact that you can write in more than one language at all is amazing. alrightyaphroditea’s piece is an intense portrayal of need that is highly figurative in its language and concepts. navindookeram’s Petrarchan sonnet is chilling in its language and ending, a haunting portrayal of pollution that might usually be invisible to us.
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cubic_zirconium wrote a sonnet that was equally haunting in its execution, but entirely different in its approach. Bit of a content warning on this one for its rather grotesque imagery, but the ending really left me wondering. avouleance was clearly very intentional in their sound. There are some great internal rhymes here. This poem is also kind of self-aware in its use of 11 syllables per line instead of 10, and there’s
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a fun humor in that. And GabrielleWynne’s is also sort of self-aware but in a different way, working in two languages while portraying the act of learning that second language. One thing I want to stress here is that, of all the poems I read, none of them were bad, not at all. None of them were perfect either, but I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a perfect poem anyway. Sure, maybe they all need another draft or two,
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but that doesn’t take away from how much I truly enjoyed reading all of them. Writers, thank you all for participating in this exercise, if only for my sake. And granted, I was perhaps predisposed to like these since they were written by people who support me, but still. I think if there’s a lesson to take away today, it would be that writing in form never hurts. Even if you choose to abandon a poem’s initial form on subsequent drafts, even the exercise
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of writing in form will force you to try and say something in a way you wouldn’t otherwise. And, keep in mind, that’s not always a good thing, but I do think it’s better than reaching for cliches or words and phrases you might always rely on. It’s always good to get out of your comfort zone, if only to teach you a thing or two. But what do you think? Is there an upside to writing in form when most all poetry we see these
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days is free verse? And what did you think of the poems in this video? Please, tell me everything. As always, I want to take this time to thank my patrons for their continued support. It truly means so much. I genuinely could not be doing this without them. You can support the channel, too, for as little as $3 a month. If you do, you’ll get to see videos early, hear about all the books I’m reading each month, and join the community Discord. We do prompts in
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there together twice a month. Our prompt at the end of March was to write a piece from someone else’s POV, so one of my patrons wrote a poem in my voice and she kinda killed it. If you want to support the channel in other important ways, doing all the algorithm stuff really does help a lot. Liking, commenting, subscribing, hyping, throwing out all your magenta clothes, that sort of thing. You can follow me on my socials if you want, but no matter what,
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keep reading, keep writing, and ultimately, keep in mind, this is a rough draft. And, for sticking around this long, have a writing prompt! It’s actually just the prompt I gave everyone for April. Write in one of the given forms and use six of the ten given words. And if you’re one of the authors featured in this video, feel free to take a stab at another form this time. But anyhow, the time is yours now. Get to writing!
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