What better way to celebrate the Fourth than with a Sextet? You must use the following rhymes, the scheme being abc abc:
| there | their |
| we're | weir |
| here | hear |
You may choose which pair is a, b, or c. You must use all the words in the bout. Good luck!
A lai is a specilized form involving a strict syllable count and rhyme scheme. Think of it as haiku with rhyme and do not be surprised if it turns out to be difficult to compose. For this reason, I am only insisting that you use two words. Use these starts to rhyme from. (You get to choose the other rhymes this time.)
A lai has nine lines. The syllable count is 5-5-2 5-5-2 5-5-2 and the rhyme scheme works aab aab aab.
Use words that rhyme with caught for the A rhymes and words that rhyme with land for the B rhyme. Caught and land must appear in the poem.
Good luck!
Watch for a meme on June 25.
Sorry about the delay. First a personal medical crisis then euphoria interrupted my chain of thought and I quite forgot about this. There will be a bout posted on June 15. In the meantime, you can play with this quatrain:
| A | pork |
| A | fork |
| B | cant |
| B | rant |
Don't bother looking up these words. They won't be in your English dictionary. I made them up. It's up to you to make them mean something.
Think of Jabberwocky. Words like gyre and gimbel -- now part of the astronauts lexicon -- didn't exist until Lewis Carroll invented them. He made them mean and subsequent poets -- including W. B. Yeats -- used them to expand the language.
What is required of you is a simple pair of quatrains rhyming abab cdcd:
| a | zeer | theer |
| b | chate | glate |
| c | oostem | yoosfem |
| d | thrornge | kvorange |
Think of the great contribution you'll be making to the English language! Words that rhyme with orange!
Post the results to your blog with a link back to this article or attach a comment with your masterpiece.
The next set of rhymes shall appear on June 1.
This exercise should come easier than a sonnet, especially since you get to use the first two lines a couple of times and only have to come up with three new ones.
A triolet is structured like this:
Line 1: A
Line 2: B
Line 3: A
Line 4: Line 1 repeats
Line 5: A
Line 6: B
Line 7: Line 1 repeats
Line 8: Line 2 repeats.
You must use these rhymes:
| A | luck | duck | buck |
| B | argentine | mean |
Post the results to your blog with a link back to this article or attach a comment with your masterpiece.
The next set of rhymes shall appear on May 15.
For more information on the triolet, see:
Try your hand at a sonnet now. Fourteen lines of poetry rhyming abab cdcd efef gg -- preferably in iambic pentameter -- using these rhymes:
| a | monuments | contents |
| b | rhyme | time |
| c | overturn | burn |
| d | masonry | memory |
| e | enmity | posterity |
| f | room | doom |
| g | arise | eyes |
Post the results to your blog with a link back to this article or attach a comment with your masterpiece.
The next set of rhymes shall appear on May 1.
This is based on Shakespeare's Sonnet 55.
Today's rhyme should appear in the form of a simple pair of quatrains rhyming abab cdcd. The rhymes that you must use are:
| a | bar | guitar |
| b | plume | fume |
| c | tripe | ripe |
| d | credo | torpedo |
Post the results to your blog with a link back to this article and/or attach a comment with your masterpiece.
The next set of rhymes shall appear on April 15.