Iambic Pentameter , Quatrain

Author’s Comments


This post has been updated. Click on the links below

http://poetrydish.blogspot.com/2009/09/english-poetry-versification-part-i.html

http://poetrydish.blogspot.com/2009/09/english-poetry-versification-part-ii_20.html

Medley of Haikus

Gardens(Triple Haiku)

now open your eyes
see the beauty around you
the gift nature gives

puzzle mind wanders
star lights shine amid the green
fragrant candles bloom

behold the vista
showcase of countless beauty
heaven and the earth

© Paterika Hengreaves
February 2006/Ohio, USA



















Sunset(Double Haiku)

vesper mist rises
with its cascadubg beauty
dusk blankets the land

chorus of insects
sing their operatic songs
the world's lullaby

© Paterika Hengreaves
February 2006/Ohio, USA

Praying Mantis(Triple Haiku)

with a floral stance
silently I bow my head
for insects I prey

the insectivore
stilt walks the entire land
preying and eating

on grass and flowers
these spiny-forelegs must rest
when I stalk to prey

© Paterika Hengreaves
January 2003/Barbados















The Beach
(Single Haiku)

that scenic picture
it's nature's watering pool
for tourists and me

© Paterika Hengreaves
November 2004/Orewa, New Zealand

HAIKU

Author's Comments

This Japanese style of poetry consists of three lines
made up of 5, 7 and 5 syllables in the order shown.

Natural images or themes are frequently included
to capture the qualities of experiencing the typical
world uncluttered by “ideas”.

This style of poetry relies on brevity and simplicity
to convey its message.

THE GHAZAL

Author's Comments


The Ghazal is a poem of five to fifteen couplets made up of a short mono-rhyme. The first two lines rhyme with a corresponding rhyme in the second of each succeeding couplet of aa ba ca and so on. The Ghazal usually deals with themes of love in a melancholy mood.

According to Agha Shahid Ali, the Ghazal expert who practised his poetic craft in USA Universities before his death in 2001 proffered these basic points on how to create a Ghazal:

No enjambments between couplets

What links couplets is a strict formal scheme

The entire Ghazal employs the same rhyme and refrain

The refrain may be a word or a phrase

Each line must be of the same length inclusive of the rhyme and refrain
(the metrical or syllabic - the key to maintaining consistency in length)

The last couplet may be (usually is) a signature couplet in which the poet
may evoke his/her name in the first, second, or third person

The scheme of rhyme and refrain occurs in BOTH lines of the first couplet
(that is how one learns what the scheme is) and then in only the second
line of every succeeding couplet (that is, the first line of every succeeding
couplet has no restrictions other than to maintain the syllabic or metrical
length.

There is an epigrammatic terseness in the Ghazal, but with immense lyricism,
evocation, sorrow, heartbreak, wit

What defines the Ghazal is a constant longing.

Caught in the net

I appreciate Free Verse after reading poems by
T. S. Eliot, Harold Hart Crane and Walt Whitman.
My favourite poems in this genre are:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
To Brooklyn Bridge
Leaves of Grass

However, structured poetry as defined as a consistent
metrical pattern has become my forte. Let it be
known though, I strike a happy balance by writing
both structured and unstructured poetry.
In so doing, I can say that I have not experienced a
writer’s block even though I have been doing this
creative writing seriously since 1980.

Free Verse is often described as an unrhymed line
without a consistent metrical pattern. In Free Verse,
the term, Unit applies to Stanza and Line refers to Verse.
According to the compliers of Wikipedia, Free Verse is
recognized as poetry by virtue of its complex patterns
of one thing or another that readers can recognize to be
part of a logical whole. This encyclopedia group, sees
Free Verse as having three major layers:

1. The free iambic verse which poets like T. S. Eliot
and Harold Hart Crane have mastered.

2. The Cadenced Verse as in the poems of Walt Whitman

3. Free Verse proper where discrepancies and variations
of meter run the gamut or take centre stage.

I agree with others that Free Verse of the highest caliber
must be beautifully rhythmic, and must flow smoothly
within a rich and vibrant imagery. Free Verse is like
“apple pie” or “pumpkin pie” in the American Diaspora,
I venture to say. It makes a bold statement, along
democratic ideals. Therefore, it can be viewed as the
great emancipator and liberator of the human soul as
reflected in this poetic genre.

I’m proud of my West Indian and Barbadian roots also of
my educational attainment from both the British, Canadian
and American cultures in that order. This being said,
I have grown to appreciate to the fullest, the poetry genres
from the Old World and New World. I don’t see either one
as being superior over the other. They both continue to enrich
the literary landscape of our times with their varying
paradigms, we can for sure, appreciate to the fullest.

Sample poems

* Caught in the Net
* Flying Fish
* Hidden Agenda
* No Friendly Sky Anymore
* Pohutukawa
* Simple Kiwi Pleasures
* The Daffodils
* The Flying Spot
* The Tribal Beat of Distant Drums
* Wrinkles

Your comments on this thread are greatly appreciated.