Poetry Tip #7: The Quatrain

BULLETIN: Our friend Jana Foster at Maumee Valley Country Day in Toledo, Ohio just sent poems by three of her 6th grade students. Although the end of school pressures delayed posting these poems until after our May cutoff, I want you to see the students’ work and let them know you appreciate their sophisticated efforts. The students are Lexie Lewis, Karena Amy, and Elora Scamardo. Way to go, kids!

If you wonder why I’m posting poetry tips more frequently these days, I’m getting my act together for the upcoming three-hour workshop on June 4 at the SCBWI conference in Princeton, New Jersey. Nothing like a little deadline to promote action! This tip is about the quatrain.

POETRY TIP #7: THE QUATRAINThe real workhorse of verse is the four-line stanza. It’s a good length and construct, in English at least, to say what one has to say or conclude one thought before moving on to the next. Like the couplet, the quatrain my stand alone as a single poem or be the building unit for poems of any length.Quatrain means four lines. There are, however, numerous variations on the theme. First, I’ll explain the shorthand method of describing both the rhyme scheme and the meter of the stanzas.

Ends of lines are noted as: a, b, c, d, etc. A 4-line poem in which the first and third lines do not rhyme but the second and fourth lines do will be written like this: abcb. Two couplets would look like this: aabb.

Meter is noted with numbers to represent the total beats (stressed syllables) in each line. A stanza with three beats in lines 1, 2, and 4 but with four beats in line 3 would look like this: 3/3/4/3.

Here are examples of how slight differences in rhyme scheme and/or meter can make large differences in the final result.

BALLAD
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 4/3/4/3
Rhyme: abcb or abab

Example: (abab): Joyful
By Rose Burgunder

A summer day is full of ease,
a bank is full of money,
our lilac bush is full of bees,
and I am full of honey.

Example: (abab): The Puffin
By Robert Williams Wood

Upon this cake of ice is perched
The paddle-footed Puffin;
To find his double we have searched,
But have discovered – Nuffin!

Example: (abcb): Family Secrets
From A THOUSAND COUSINS

My aunt thinks she’s a mallard duck,
It’s sort of hard to explain,
But don’t go eat at her house
‘Cause all she serves is grain.

SHORT BALLAD
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 3/3/4/3
Rhyme: abab or abcb
Example: (abcb): Beside the Line of Elephants
By Edna Becker

I think they had no pattern
When they cut out the elephant’s skin;
Some places it needs letting out,
And others, taking in.

LONG BALLAD
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 4/4/4/4 (tetrameter)
Rhyme: abcb, aabb, or abab
Example: (abab): My Treasure
From THE ALLIGATOR IN THE CLOSET
By David L. Harrison

It’s such a slender little book
Squeezed between a larger pair,
Unless you know just where to look
You could easily miss it there.

But it’s worth more than all the host
Of books on shelves beside my bed.
I’ll forever treasure most
This book – the first I ever read.

HEROIC
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 5/5/5/5 (pentameter)
Rhyme: abab, abcb, or abba
Example: (abba):Things we Prize
From CONNECTING DOTS
By David L. Harrison
1st two stanzas

Hidden in the mountains, fed by snow,
The lake was small. We stayed there every year
And got to know our neighbors camping near
In tents like toadstools growing in a row.

I found a secret pool, a little nook
Where I could lie and watch the fish below
But no amount of coaxing made them go
For worms, or bits of bacon on my hook.

RUBAIYAT
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 5/5/5/5
Rhyme: aaba
Example: Translated from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
By Edward Fitzgerald

The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

IN MEMORIAM
Typical meter: iambic
Line lengths: 4/4/4/4
Rhyme: abba
Example: Death of a Wasp
From THE ALLIGATOR IN THE CLOSET
By David L. Harrison
(1st two stanzas)

Bumping at the windowpane
He fought against the solid air
That held him as a prisoner there,
But all his struggles were in vain.

Never comprehending glass
Clear as air that stopped him hard
And blocked his freedom to the yard,
Repeatedly he tried to pass.

Of these forms of the quatrain, by far the most popular is the first one I gave you, the BALLAD stanza, usually with a rhyme pattern of abcb. Next is the LONG BALLAD, also with an abcb rhyming pattern. Why? Because these are the easiest forms to construct. It’s not as hard to find one pair of lines that rhyme as it is to find two pairs that rhyme. But there is a danger in always going with the most expedient. If we’re not careful, we can fall into a sing-songy rut when using this form. A well turned ballad can be truly effective but a poorly constructed effort sounds trite, silly, or worse.

There are all sorts of variations on these basic forms.

In Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” he writes 4-line stanzas with 4/4/4/4 beats (LONG BALLAD) and a rhyme scheme of aaba (RUBAIYAT). So did Frost write a variation of a LONG BALLAD or a variation of a RUBAIYAT? It doesn’t matter when it works.

(1st stanza)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Elizabeth Coatsworth shows us another variation in her poem, “Sea Gull.” She chooses a pattern of 3/3/4/2 with a rhyme scheme of abcb.

The sea gull curves his wings,
the sea gull turns his eyes.
Get down into the water, fish!
(if you are wise.)

The sea gull slants his wings,
the sea gull turns his head.
Get deep into the water, fish!
(or you’ll be dead.)

And what about a 4-line stanza with three beats in every line (3/3/3/3)? And what if the rhyme scheme looks like this (abbb) but lines two and three are the SAME word? Why, then you would have a wonderful poem, “One Day When We Went Walking,” by Valine Hobbs.

(1st stanza)
One day when we went walking,
I found a dragon’s tooth,
A dreadful dragon’s tooth,
“A locust thorn,” said Ruth.

Or a 4-line stanza with three beats in every line and a rhyme scheme of abab? Here’s A. E. Housman’s “Amelia Mixed the Mustard.”

Amelia mixed the mustard,
She mixed it good and thick;
She put it in the custard
And made her Mother sick,

And showing satisfaction
By many a loud huzza
“Observe,” said she, “the action
Of mustard on Mamma.”

I hope these examples provide more help than confusion. A cardinal rule of writing verse is to be consistent. If you find a pattern with its own unique rhythm, line length, and rhyme scheme – and it works to say what you want to convey –go with it.

Don’t forget to vote for your selections for May Hall of Fame Poet and May Hall of Fame Young Poet. Polls close on May 30. Here’s the link: http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/let-the-voting-begin-4/ 

David

Poetry Tip #6

REMINDER: FRIDAY NIGHT AT 10:00 CST IS THE CUTOFF FOR THIS MONTH’S POEMS. DON’T MISS IT!

Today I’m happy to present Poetry Tip #6. This one is about the two shortest forms of verse, the couplet and the tercet. Next time I’ll get to the four line stanzas.

POETRY TIP #6: SHORT STANZAS: COUPLETS AND TERCETS

In 1959 I sat in an auditorium in Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia to hear Robert Frost speak. At 85 and rather frail, he thrilled us with his famous poems read as only the poet could read them. Toward the end of his presentation, Frost confided that he no longer had the energy to compose longer works but he still loved writing couplets.

COUPLET/DISTICH

A couplet, that shortest of all stanzas, can stand alone as a single poem or be used as a building unit for longer poems of any length. Writing couplets is a great way to get into verse (structured poetry). Ogden Nash made mirthful use of the two line poem when he penned:

The cow is of the bovine ilk,
One end is moo, the other, milk.

In my case, I found frequent use of the couplet in BUGS, POEMS ABOUT CREEPING THINGS. For example:

The termite doesn’t eat the way it should.
It’s not his fault, his food all tastes like wood.

In the first case, Nash uses four beats per line of iambic meter so we call that structure iambic tetrameter. My poem is also in iambic but uses five beats per line, making it iambic pentameter. These two are the most popular forms but there are many other combinations.

For example, here are two samples from T. S. Eliot’s work, taken from his wonderful “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” which provided the basis for Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, CATS. Eliot employed seven beats per iambic line to introduce us to GROWLTIGER, which begins:

GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge:
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.

It took eight stressed syllables per line to tell the tale of The Old Gumbie Cat:

I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots;
Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots.

Contrast Eliot’s long, playful lines to my quick report in BUGS regarding my inability to manage a chocolate covered grasshopper:

Me chew it?
Can’t do it.

You can also write a two-line stanza of verse that doesn’t rhyme. There’s even a name for such a form. It’s called a distich. Change one word in Nash’s poem:

The cow is of the bovine kind,
One end is moo, the other, milk.

We have now established an internal rhyme (bovine/kind) in line one. Line two still retains its alliteration with moo/milk, and the two lines still form a perfectly valid poem. However, it’s now technically a distich rather than a couplet.

Many poems are written in a series of couplets. Again using BUGS for examples, I used two sets of couplets to tell about no-see-ums:

No-see-um’s tiny bite
Keeps you scratching half the night.
No-see-um’s no fun.
Next time you don’t see ‘um, run!

I took three sets of couplets to tell on these beetles:

Two dumb beetles set out to float
Across the sea in a tennis-shoe boat.
Sadly, the tennis shoe sank before
The beetles had sailed a foot from shore.
The beetles cried with red faces,
“Duh, we shoulda tied da laces.”

TERCET/TRIPLET/TERZA RIMA

A stanza one line longer than a couplet is a tercet. If all three lines of the tercet rhyme, it’s called a triplet. As you might imagine, finding three consecutive rhymes is not easy so the triplet is a fairly rare bird. However, it isn’t too unusual to compose three-line stanzas in which only two of the three end in a rhyme.

One version, called the terza rima, calls for the first and third lines to end in the same sound in stanza one. In stanza two, the ending sound of the middle line of the first stanza becomes the rhyme sound for the first and third lines of the new stanza, and so on.

Here is an example of how I’ve used tercets. In “Daydreams,” from CONNECTING DOTS, I used three-line stanzas in which the second and third lines rhyme, leaving the first lines to set the scene for each of the six stanzas. Like this:

I remember the turtle
beneath our basement stair.
I see him sleeping there.

Maybe he’s dreaming of clover,
shade beside a tree,
days when he was free.

In THE MOUSE WAS OUT AT RECESS, the poem “The Bus” is told in tercets in which the first two lines rhyme and the third line is a kind of refrain that appears with slightly altered wording in each of the nine stanzas:

You know what’s cool
About going to school?
Riding on the bus!

You wave at your friends
When the day just begins
And you’re riding on the bus.

In “It’s Better if You Don’t Know” from THE MOUSE WAS OUT AT RECESS, I devised sets of three-line stanzas in which the second lines of consecutive stanzas rhymed. The third lines of the same stanzas also rhymed but not with the same sound. Like this:

There’s a Welcome sign
On the principal’s door,
(But try not to go.)

Her office is long.
There’s a rug on the floor.
(Never mind how I know.)

As you can see, two-line and three-line stanzas can be employed in a variety of ways to get your ideas told. To be such short forms, they are surprisingly adaptable.

Thanks to you who have let me know your preferences among the features I’ve introduced since starting my blog last August. Many readers have dropped by to review the boxes. Voting ends Saturday.
http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/which-features-do-you-like-best-about-my-blog

Poetry Tip #5

Sorry it has taken a while to get to my fifth installment of Poetry Tips. I hope it will be helpful. Next I intended to discuss the sounds of our language as they apply to poetry, but I think I’ll leave that for later and go straight to some of the most common forms of verse. Soon. I promise!

POETRY TIP #5: ACCENTUAL AND SYLLABIC VERSE

Poems are written in syllables arranged into packets of sound to form lines and stanzas. In the English language, syllables are stressed (accented) or unstressed so when strung in consistent patterns, called feet, they create a variety of meters and rhythms. The most common feet are iambic (da DA), anapestic (da da DA), trochaic (DA da), and dactylic (DA da da). Iambic and anapestic are characterized as rising meters while trochaic and dactylic are falling meters.

Poetry written in English, whether as verse or free verse, is built with the same units of speech used in everyday language. Verse requires structure so we search harder for a syllable, word, or sequence to fit the need. Though free verse is also comprised of accented and unaccented sounds there is no set rule about where they fall. Sometimes the poet has to guard against slipping into meter out of force of habit.

Casual conversation is like free verse in that there are no rules for placing the accented sounds. We say what we want to say and move on. (In that last sentence, look for the accents: We say what we want to say and move on.) In Somebody Catch My Homework, the concluding line in my poem, “Monday,” goes like this:

Monday sure can be a bummer.

The line has eight syllables arranged into four trochaic feet (DA da DA da DA da DA da).
Chatting with a friend, we might put it slightly differently:

Monday can sure be a bummer.

This has the same number of syllables and the same number of beats, but the second beat (can sure) is now reversed from trochaic (DA da) to iambic (da DA), which changes how we scan the line.

Believe it or not this fractured line can, under the right circumstances, still be a legitimate line of poetry. When we write what is called accentual poems, we count only the number of beats in a line or group of lines. Where they are placed is less important than how many there are. Here is an example from Somebody Catch My Homework called “My Excuse.” The opening stanzas are:

But I did do my homework!
Yes ma’am!
I really really did!
Un-huh.

Mama wrapped fish bones in it.
See?
She really really did!
Un-huh.

And them old fish bones
Stinked up the kitchen
Till Daddy throwed ‘em out.
Un-huh!

Now our neighbor, she’s old,
And she’s got an old cat,
And she got in our trash can.
See?

In these stanzas, there is no prevailing meter. If you count the number of beats in each line, there is variation there too. But if you count the accents or stresses in each stanza, you’ll find ten in each, and that’s the glue that holds the poem together, especially when you read it aloud. The reader feels a sense of cohesiveness in the stanzas that keeps the poem rocking along. The poem sounds conversational, and it is, but there is an underlying structure that helps it sound that way. Accentual poems are nearly subliminal in their influence on the reader but they can be effective.

Syllabic verse counts only the number of syllables in the lines or stanzas and is rarely used in English because of our system of stressed and unstressed sounds. Elementary students are taught to write two ancient forms of Japanese poetry – haiku and tanka – by counting and arranging syllables — 17 for the haiku in three lines of 5-7-5 and 31 for the tanka in five lines of 5-7-5-7-7.

In Japanese writing, counting syllables is not the standard. In their own language Japanese poets use units called onji rather than syllables. An onji is the smallest linguistic unit in that language. Thanks to our adaptations, haiku and tanka are the most popular syllabic verse practiced in English even though we’ve interpreted the form according to our own needs and applications.

Here is a quick reference to previous Poetry Tips.

#1: http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/new-post-soon/
#2: http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/poetry-tip-2-the-line-arrangement
#3: http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/poetry-tip-3-later-this-morning/
#4: http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/poetry-tip-4/

David

Poetry tip #4

REMINDER: This is your last day to vote for the March Hall of Fame Poets and Young Poets. Go the boxes posted on March 25, scroll down the list to the poet of your choice, click on the circle beside his or her name, go to the bottom of the ballot and click on VOTE. That’s all there is to it. Cutoff is tonight at 10:00 CST and tomorrow I’ll announce the month’s winning poets.Headed inito our final day of voting, Laura Purdie Salas leads the way among adult poets with Jackie Huppenthal in second and Fahad in third. Among young poets, Josh and Colin are tied and Sophie is close behind. Good wishes to all!

POETRY TIP #4: VISUAL ELEMENTS

A poem’s shape may lend a visual dimension to how we experience the words. In some cases the poet may arrange lines to create a spatial effect that provides the reader/viewer with clues to the mood or premise of the message. Georgia Heard helps us “see” the flight of her hummingbird in this poem from Creatures of Earth, Sea, and Sky (Boyds Mills Press, 1992) by staggering the lines on the page the way a hummingbird hovers and zigzags through a garden. I can’t get the lines to do that here but believe me, in the book they do indeed zig and zag!

HUMMINGBIRD

Ruby-throated hummingbird

zig-zags

from morning glories

to honeysuckle

sipping

honey

from a straw

all day long.

In Paint Me a Poem (Boyds Mills Press, 2005), Justine Rowdon arranges her lines, screened colors, and even the sizes of her words to add a sense of galloping urgency to her poem about George Washington. Again I cannot duplicate the layout here but the lines, which begin like this, rush forward as the words grow in size and intensity.

Why, of course, it’s George
Riding toward Valley forge.

faster, Faster, FASTER!

Trotting into surrounded towns,

faster, Faster, FASTER!

In more obvious cases of line arrangement and shapes (concrete poems), the poet intentionally forms a picture with his/her words in a recognizable shape. I lack the tools and skills to present samples here of concrete poems but there are plenty available if you search the Internet.

More commonly poets use line breaks, punctuation, and capitalization to add visual effects to what they write. Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer winning poet and one-time professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. In his rhyming verse poem, “You Gotta Take Out Milt (Peotry, The Humor Issue; July/August 2006, pp 293-294) Muldoon divides 46 lines into five stanzas and three refrains without punctuation but for a single question mark and not even a period at the end. Why?

For one thing, it’s a funny poem and gets funnier if you read it aloud the way a guy might sound given his discovery that his wife’s out to get him. Who would break for commas under such circumstances?

On the other hand, each and every line begins with a capital letter, a reminder to the reader that this is indeed a poem and the poet is aware that he’s breaking rules at one end of the line but is observing traditional etiquette at the other. Somehow the effect of starting each line with a straight face enhances the surprising antics of the lines themselves.

In “An Earl Martyr,” (William Carlos Williams   Selected Poems, A New Directions Book, 1985, page 89) the poet begins the first word in every other line with a capital letter whether it needs it or not and even though the poem is told in free verse, which normally doesn’t require capitals except to start a new sentence or stanza.

Rather than permit him
to testify in court
Giving reasons
why he stole from
Exclusive stores

Why? In my case as a reader, this tactic makes me slow down in reading to examine each line and consider why the poet chose to alternate capitalization while ignoring most punctuation.

You can find many other examples of poets who choose to punctuate, arrange, and capitalize their work to gain a certain desired effect. Here’s Constance Levy in A Crack in the Clouds (McElderry Books, 1998) with her poem, “Seagull Tricks.”

You may think
he’s not thinking
about your sandwich
because he is looking
the other way.

You may think
he’s not scheming
because he is dreaming
and stands like an innocent
statue in gray.

Notice how Connie arranges her lines and chooses her capitalization. These stanzas end in rhyme: way/gray, yet her lines all run over into the next (enjambment lines) so she begins them all with lower case letters to allow the reader freedom to keep moving.

In Music of their Hooves (Boyds Mills Press, 1994), Nancy Springer’s title poem is told in two 4-line stanzas. She chooses iambic and anapestic meters to echo the thundering hooves of galloping horses but also omits punctuation, capitalization, and even standard borders to free our spirits to run with the horses:

The earth is a drum
their hooves pound the beat
the cantering cantering
rhythm of their feet

My heart is a drum
every beat of it loves
the galloping galloping
music of their hooves

Let me know if these occasional poetry tips are of interest to you and/or helpful. I don’t want to bore readers with information you don’t care to receive. Thanks.
David

Coming up this week

REMINDER: Time to vote for your March Word of the Month favorite adult and student poems. Tomorrow night at 10:00 CST is the cutoff. Congratulations to our leaders so far. Laura Purdie Salas and Jackie Huppenthal are tied in first place followed closely by Fahad, drj3kyll, DeLane Parrott, and Liz Korba (a previouis winner). Students are led by Colin Hurley with Anne, Josh, Victoria, and Fareid all tied in second place.

Make today and tomorrow count with your votes! Thanks.

Hello everyone. Here are some events to expect this week.

Tuesday, March 30: Poetry Tip #4 will be posted. I’ll discuss punctuation and capitalization plus how words and lines can be designed and/or arranged to help enhance the impact and underscore the intent of your poem.

Tuesday night at 10:00 CST we’ll cut off voting for the March Word of the Month Poems.

Wednesday, March 31: March Hall of Fame Poets will be announced and the word of the month for April will be revealed. You don’t want to miss that!

Thursday, April 1: I’ll post the biographical information about this week’s guest, Nile Stanley. Nile is an author, teacher, poet, and performer. You’re going to enjoy his appearance on Friday.

Also, if anyone wants to post an April Fools Day poem in the comment section, that’s the day to do it.

Friday, April 2: My guest Nile Stanley will present some remarks and also share a “digi-poem” with us.

It promises to be a busy week so I hope you’ll join us.

David