Young Poet’s Showcase – Expressing Yourself in Verse

      Young writers often find it difficult to write in forms that employ rhyme schemes and metered lines in a predetermined pattern.  Rather than seeing the form as supportive of their desire to express themselves in words, young writers may feel that the form is making it too hard to express themselves.  Unless you choose the right poetic form for your theme, you might find that the poetic form is fighting your theme, and you might want to just give up and write your poem in free verse!  But some of the most beautiful and memorable poems in the English literature were those that combined the writer’s theme with a supportive poetic form.  Would Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” have the same impact on readers if it were written in free verse rather than carefully crafted in villanelle form?  Other good examples of writers combining their theme with a supportive poetic form would be:  the refrains of the rondeau form for remembering soldier sacrifice in McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields“, and the repeated end-words of the sestina form for the gradually worsening situation in Hecht’s “The Book of Yolek“.  Humor is a theme that is especially supported by a poetic form employing rhyme and meter — to prove it to yourself, try writing a free verse poem that’s as funny as any good limerick (examples)!

      So I would like to applaud Phoebe Nir, the teen author of this month’s “Trellis Magazine Young Poets Showcase” poem, for sending us a perfect Passerat villanelle that skillfully employs the repetitive and rhythmic nature of the villanelle form to support her theme of the lapping nature of ocean waves!  The villanelle form is explained in Issue 5 of the magazine.  The villanelle form uses the rhyme scheme a-b-a, two alternating refrains, and metered lines.  Phoebe chose the traditional iambic pentameter meter. 

       Here is Phoebe’s ocean villanelle.  I invite everyone to read this teen writer’s poem and give her constructive comments. 

Villanelle – Seasick
by Phoebe Nir
12th Grade, Fieldston School in Bronx, New York

The ocean has a tongue, and it can lick
A hulking boulder to a grain of sand.
 How often must I ask if you are sick?

I wonder if an oyster knows the trick
Of how to coax a pearl out of its gland.
The ocean has a tongue, and it can lick.

My tongue is dry and like a slab of brick.
I wish it could maneuver like a hand.
How often must I ask if you are sick?

When every pore of skin can house a tick
The world must seem unfathomably grand.
The ocean has a tongue, and it can lick.

If everything that seems to sit and stick
Is really just a loaded rubber band,
How often must I ask if you are sick?

Please wake me when the fog has grown too thick
And we will search for someplace you can stand.
The ocean has a tongue, and it can lick.
How often must I ask if you are sick?

      If you are a student (grades K-12, through age 18), or a teacher, you can submit student poetry for consideration for publication on this site.  Please see details on the Submit page of the Trellis Magazine website.  The website has information on writing in many poetic forms to help writers of all ages and skill levels, and each magazine is free to read online.  E-mail Trellis Magazine if you have any questions.

Young Poets Showcase

Welcome to another “Trellis Magazine Young Poets Showcase” posting!  This is a poem from a teen poet in India.  I invite you to read the poem and send constructive blog comments for this young writer. 

       First, let’s review the Rhyming Couplets poetic form which the teen poet used.  Rhyming Couplets is a form in which the end of every two lines rhyme (the last word in a line rhymes with the last word of the next line) like this:  a-a, b-b, c-c, and so on.  It can be an easy poetic form for a novice poet who wants to begin using poetic forms.

       Rhyme is an important tool for creating poetry in the English language.  Many traditional poetic forms have a pattern of rhyming words at the ends of the lines.  Rhyme is used for two main reasons.  Rhymed words are beautiful and they delight the ear of the reader.  Also, rhymes at the end of the lines make the poem simpler for the reader to understand, by breaking the poem into smaller parts with an audible ending, like the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. You can read more about rhyme on the Trellis Magazine website in:

Right Word article “Rhymes for Modern Times“

Issue 2 article “Humor in Poetic Form“

Issue 4 article “The Versatile Stanza“

      Rhyming Couplets can become a more complicated poetic form in the hands of an experienced poet like Chaucer or Dryden.  These poets incorporate the use of meter into the lines of their poems, either having both lines of the couplet the same metrical length, or using two different alternating lengths in the poem’s lines.

      Rhyming Couplets is a useful and versatile poetic form with a long history in English language poetry.  This form has been used for short poems, long poems, serious poems, and humorous poems.

      Now here is the Showcase poem. 

 World in Danger

Rhyming Couplets, by Karuna Balakrishnan

9^th grade, Trinity Academy Matriculation Higher Secondary School, in TamilNadu, India

 

I  was  in  an  island,
Far  away  from  mainland.

A  land  filled  with  nature’s  gifts
And  the  men  there  were  very  swift.

But  one  day  came  a  gigantic  wave,
Tsunami,  the  harbor  wave.

The  Andamans  were  washed  away
And  many  lives  were  taken  away.

Oh  God!  All  have  come  to  the  skies,
Don’t  you  hear  our  cries?

Oh!  humans
Don’t  be  inhuman.

Reduce  global  warming
Which  is  very  harming.

Protect  the  world 
From  the  problems  that  are  curled.

 

      I  invite you to post constructive blog comments for this young writer. 

      If you are a student (grades K-12, through age 18) or a teacher, you can submit student poetry for consideration for publication on this site.  Please see details on the Submit  page of the Trellis Magazine website .  The website has information on writing in many poetic forms to help writers of all ages and skill levels, and each magazine is free to read online.  E-mail Trellis Magazine if you have any questions.

New Article Added to Website

During our break between issues of Trellis Magazine, we are working to make the website a better resource for everyone who is interested in poetic form.  The latest addition is an article Reinventing the Wheel by Lewis Turco, about his lifelong fascination with classical meters in modern poetry.  The article includes explanations of meter, how to “scan”, a table of meters, and example poems.

 The Trellis Magazine website includes lots of information on writing in many poetic forms to help writers of all ages and skill levels, and each magazine is free to read online.  But we want to continue expanding the website!  We are accepting many kinds of submissions, especially for the Resources page of the website, and donated funding is available.  See the “Website Submissions” section of the Submit  page for details.

 Student submissions are being accepted.  Send student poetry to Trellis Magazine anytime for consideration for online publication.  Students (grades K-12) may send their individual poems.  Teachers can send one student’s poem or a whole class project.  We will publish class projects on the Trellis Magazine website.  I publish individual student’s poems here on my Editor’s Blog in the “Young Poets Showcase”, which allows others to comment on the poems.  To be published on the Trellis Magazine website or this blog, student poems should be written in a poetic form.  Students can use a traditional poetic form (such as acrostic, ballad, sonnet, villanelle, rondeau, or sestina); or they can use one of the classical forms (such as Sapphics or choriambics) from Lewis Turco’s new article.  Students can also invent their own creative poetic form.  For more information on how to submit student poetry, see the Submit  page of the website.  You are welcome to contact us if you have further questions.

April is National Poetry Month!

The Academy of American Poets established National Poetry Month in April 1996 as a month-long celebration of poetry to bring together publishers, bookseller, literary organizations, libraries, teachers, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its important place in American culture.

 

At the Academy of American Poets’ website http://www.poets.org you can find a calendar and map of events throughout the country.  There is also a “list of 30 ways” to celebrate – one for each day of the month.  For teachers, there are free poetry lesson plans, curriculum units, and tip sheets.  For librarians, there are tip sheets including ideas for book displays, programs and discussions, collection development, outreach, and marketing.  For booksellers, there are tip sheets of ideas for marketing, merchandising, and special events. 

 

For kids and teens who like writing funny poems, or just playing around with words, we suggest having fun with games and contests during poetry month at author Kenn Nesbitt’s “Poetry 4 Kids” website http://www.poetry4kids.com/

 

On April 30 the Academy invites everyone to celebrate “Poem in your Pocket Day” with great ideas at http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406 for poets, literary organizations,  and poetry lovers to get their favorite poetry out there in the public.  The Academy website has a searchable database of many wonderful poems.

 

Here are the favorite poems of some of the staff and volunteers at Trellis Magazine, which we are planning to carry in our pockets on April 30:

 

Suzanne – “A Prayer for My Daughter”  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15530 by William Butler Yeats (stanzas)

Diane – “The Windhover” http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20311 by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Petrarchan sonnet)

Other volunteers:

“Shall I Compare Thee” http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15555 by William Shakespeare (Shakespearean sonnet)

“Ballade at Thirty-five” http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1548.html by Dorothy Parker (ballade)

“Braiding” http://plagiarist.com/poetry/2798/ by Li-Young Lee (free verse)

“Easter Wings” http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/973.html by George Herbert (picture poem)

 

I invite you to send me a blog comment containing information on the favorite poem you plan to carry in your pocket!

New Poem and Article

We’re still here during our long break between issues of the magazine and we’re trying to make the website a better resource for everyone who is interested in poetic form.  Some new additions include an article on writing the lyrics for hymns by Robert P. Sonkowsky and several new book reviews.  I’ll also be updating this blog more frequently with interesting articles, poems, and fun tidbits. 

 Although the magazine is not accepting poetry at this time, I will publish student poetry on this blog if any teachers or students send me poetry in poetic form.

 In the meantime, please enjoy this poem by Don Thackrey.  This is the Editor’s Choice winner from our 2008 Villanelle Contest.  Don used the Passerat villanelle form, with iambic pentameter for the lines and a rhyme scheme of  A¹bA²   abA¹   abA²   abA¹   abA²   abA¹A², where A1 and A2 are different refrain lines that rhyme.  To read more about the villanelle form with more examples, see the Summer 2008 Issue 5 of Trellis Magazine.

 

“You Call Yourself a Poet?”

by Don Thackrey

 

You call yourself a poet, I suppose.

I see you stake a claim to write “free verse,”

But . . . fancy writing free of rules is prose.

 

Your words whip round as when a whirlwind blows.

You call those airy flights “inspired”—and, worse,

You call yourself a poet, I suppose.

 

Your lines don’t rhyme or scan—anything goes.

More order could be found in my wife’s purse.

Such fancy writing free of rules is prose.

 

The game of tennis, any player knows,

Has nets and lines.  “Such rules be damned!” you curse.

You call yourself “a poet?”      . . . I suppose

 

You don’t go swimming dressed in formal clothes

And don’t drive forward when you’re in reverse.

Assent then: writing, free of rules, is prose.

 

This villanelle speaks plainly.  I oppose

Your limp, anarchic, libertine free verse.

You call yourself a poet, I suppose,

But fancy writing free of rules is . . . prose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trellis Magazine 2009 Calendar available

     Our first photo/poetry calendar is now available through the Trellis Magazine website.  THE 2009 CALENDAR MAKES A GREAT HOLIDAY GIFT!  The twelve months are celebrated in a combination of seasonal photos, including readers’ favorite photos from past issues of the magazine, with formal poetry about each month by writers like Shelley, Frost, Marvell, and Christina Rossetti.  The price for the calendar includes a $2 donation to Trellis’ nonprofit literary and educational programs.  

 

     We are accepting certain types of new submissions at this time, to help us build the resources of our website for creative writers of all ages.  There is donated funding available for some types of submissions.  See the Trellis Magazine website Submit page at http://www.trellismagazine.com/submit.html for details.  Our next contest is expected to be a Calendar contest.

 

     I’d also like to share another Young Poet’s Showcase Poem.  The Young Poet’s Showcase helps promising young poets gain exposure and get feedback on their work.  This is a poem from our summer Villanelle Contest.  The Villanelle is originally a French poetic form that became popular in the nineteenth century.  It has nineteen lines total, in five tercets and a final quatrain.  It uses only two end-rhyme sounds “a” and “b”. There are two different refrain lines (A and A’) which rhyme and which occur in the first tercet, are then alternately repeated in the next tercets, and occur together in the final quatrain.  The rhyme scheme is usually:  AbA’  abA  abA’  abA  abA’  abAA’ .  You can read more about this form and its use in Issue 5 of Trellis Magazine.  Please read the poem and send constructive comments for the teen writer.

 

 

A Wish for You

Villanelle, by Cassidy Geborkoff

11th grade, Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama

 

I lie in bed crying as I wish for you.

After each slap, I run to my bedroom;

I hear your voice whispering, “I love you.”

 

If you were here, I would not feel so blue.

Joseph, my knight, come rescue me from doom.

I lie in bed crying as I wish for you.

 

Because I know your love for me is true

I always seem to forget the bad moon;

I hear your voice whispering, “I love you.”

 

You make me see my world in a new hue,

That is why I want you here in my room.

I lie in bed crying as I wish for you.

 

I sit in the field, in the morning dew;

While I talk to you, I watch a single rose bloom.

I hear your voice whispering, “I love you.”

 

I can’t help but smile and say I love you, too,

As I smell the flowers’ sweet perfume.

I lie in bed crying as I wish for you;

I hear your voice whispering, “I love you.”

 

Issue 5 now available!

The delicious new Summer 2008 Issue 5 magazine is now available on our website.  It contains the wonderful winners of our Villanelle contest, other interesting poetry in a variety of forms, an article by Bryan Bridges on the villanelle and variants with a new terzanelle by Lewis Turco, and beautiful summer photography.  Also, we have posted a new chart of 100 online villanelle examples in the Resources section of our website.  I hope you enjoy it!

Delay in Issue 5

I’d like to apologize for the lateness of the summer issue.  We’re working as diligently as possible to get the magazine finished and posted online in the next few weeks.  I’ve had a bit of upheaval in my life recently and isn’t it always the case that as soon as you think you’re settled, everything gets a little bit crazy again!

In the meantime, I’d like to share another Young Poet’s Showcase Poem.

 The Young Poet’s Showcase helps promising young poets gain exposure and get feedback on their work.  This is a poem from our winter Sestina contest.  Please read the poem and send constructive comments for the teen writer.

       The Sestina is a thousand-year-old European poetic form with six sestets and a final tercet.  The lines have specific end-words instead of rhymes, and the end-words are repeated from sestet to sestet in a changing order.  The final tercet is a conclusion containing all six end-words.  To read more about this complicated form, please see the third issue of Trellis Magazine or read about the form in my September 4 blog post below.

 

Bondage Breaks Our Plastic Hearts

Sestina, by Kayla Tidwell

9^th grade, Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama

 

A little smile, a simple hello,

A deep frown, a complex goodbye,

Still, I’m standing here

No answer to your dumb question

As your light brown eyes ask me why,

And with such a sarcastic passion, I wanna die.

 

To get rid of my love for you I would die.

I would die so I’d never have to say hello,

Never have to face the truth and tell you why.

I wouldn’t waste my time on goodbye,

But then I’d remember my own question,

And wanna know why you’re even here.

 

You left me alone here.

So why would you even care if I were to die?

Can you even answer that question?

Will you never again say hello?

Must it always be another goodbye,

Tell me why must I face this!  Why?

 

I wanna forget you; yet, I can’t and I don’t know why.

We both stood here,

And as we parted, it was thought as our last goodbye.

But here I am again, and with you, memories just won’t die.

I release another sigh, while you stutter out a guilty hello,

I try not to be mean so instead I ask a question.

 

What was it you truly meant by that freaking question!?

How can you just look at me with those damn eyes and ask why?

I wave my hand in your face and yell, “Hello!”

“I’m right in front of you!  I’m right here!”

I scream, and choke back a cry, “Please don’t die!”

In my mind I howl, this can’t be the last goodbye.

 

You try to tell me it’s fine, that this isn’t goodbye.

I’m not stupid, though; I know it’s a lie. But I believe it until you die.

“I love you because I hate you,” I say answering your question;

I smile at you sincerely and finish my sentence, “that’s why.”

Tears roll down our cheeks and we leave the silence here.

We laugh as we cry, and whisper to each other, “Hello.”

 

“What type of question is why?”

I ask trying to not think of the fact that you’re going to die with only me here.

We spent your last few minutes silently saying goodbye as we whispered hello.

 

Young Poet’s Showcase

    This is our second Trellis Magazine Young Poet’s Showcase posting!  The Young Poet’s Showcase helps promising young poets gain exposure and get feedback on their work.  This is a poem from our winter Sestina contest.  Please read the poem and post constructive comments for this young writer. 

       First, I’ll briefly review the sestina poetic form, which was originated in the twelfth century by Arnaut Daniel, a French poet and mathematician.  The standard sestina has 39 lines arranged in seven stanzas.  Each line usually has the same length in syllables or meter. The first six stanzas are sestets (stanzas of six lines).  The last stanza is called the envoy, and it only has three lines. The last word of each line is called a teleuton (end-word).

      The six lines of the first stanza end with specific teleutons. Every subsequent stanza has the six teleutons in a different order.  If we use a number to stand for each end-word, the standard pattern for mixing up the teleutons is:

 

First stanza       123456

Second stanza   615243

Third stanza      364125

Fourth stanza    532614

Fifth stanza       451362

Sixth stanza      246531

 

       The envoy must use all six teleutons, so its three lines end with three of the teleutons, and it includes the other three teleutons somewhere within the lines.

       Now here is the second Showcase poem: 

 

Pink Cakes and White Ponies

Sestina, by Thea Anderson

9^th grade, Lee High School in Alabama

 

Sitting in her little dress the girl

Looks on in awe as her mother

Sifts and mixes things to form a cake

For dessert that night.

The frosting is to be pink,

With little flowers sprayed across the top.

 

The ingredients still litter the counter top,

And so the mother instructs the girl

To clear it all up as she places the pink

Tray inside of the oven, moving to call up her mother.

As the sun finishes its’ setting to turn into night

The girl watches the creation cooking in the oven, her very own cake.

 

Suddenly, a white pony burst forth from where the cake

Had been, landing upon the counter top

As the sun peeks through the shade of night

And startles the little girl

So that she must be saved by her mother

From tumbling down to the floor, white no longer but pink.

 

It wasn’t just the floor, as everything seemed pink.

The little girl looked all around, searching for her cake.

But alas, there was no cake, says her mother,

As the pony prances round the counter top.

Jumping to the floor it prances, vibrating the little girl

And suddenly the kitchen is normal and it is again night.

 

From behind a hand lets go, the night

Shining upon the pink

Frosting of the cake.  Blinking, the girl

Wonders, looking at the cake.

Sitting, she had fallen asleep, perched on the top

Of her chair, only to be woken by her mother.

 

She smiles and stands to greet her grandmother

Who came to spend the night

For her granddaughter’s birthday.  Candles sat on top

Of the cake, spiraled with white and pink

Streaks.  She stares hungrily at the cake

From the big, green eyes of a little girl

 

Till finally the candles are lit by her mother, and the girl

Holds in her breath.  They sing her a song of a beautiful night as she blows out the cake,

Receiving her very own slice, top frosted pink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Villanelle Contest Winners

       Thanks so much to everyone who wrote and submitted poetry for the Trellis Magazine Villanelle Contest.  I hope all of you enjoyed writing in the challenging villanelle form. We received many Passerat villanelles with interesting themes, and some very creative villanelle-like poems.  The Judges had a difficult time choosing the winners from so many excellent poems.  Here are their final selections:
First Place (tied): 

“Old Land” by Juleigh Howard-Hobson, and

“Helping Carolyn Forché Revise Her Prose Poem ‘The Colonel’” by Don Thackrey

Second Place:  “An Abbreviation” by Stuart Sharp

Third Place:  “In Arles” by Margaret Rabb

Student Book Prize:  “Such a Cacophony” by R. S. Chase (11^th grade)

Honorable Mentions: 

“Release” by Kristen McHenry

“Lake Michigan Dunes” by Frank Hubeny

“A Blessed Sailor Be” Terzanelle by Michael R. Samford

“Fear” by Stephanie N. Ihejirika (10^th grade)

“Prom Night” by Jonece Dunigan (10^th grade)

         The winning villanelles will be published in the Summer Issue 5 magazine (coming soon).  We will also have one Young Poets Showcase winner (Cassidy Geborkoff) whose villanelle will be published in this Blog later.