Don't ask me why, but this semester I decided to sign up for a creative writing class. This was probably the silliest thing I could I do. Thus far, six weeks in we have only barely touched on poetry and things such as villanelles, iambic pentameters, etc. Each week the classes were assigned to write a poem with strict formatting, except the first week which included four paragraphs of a boring bio. I never knew until this semester at how hard sticking to a format is. Why limit my creativity and imagination to twenty lines, to strict rhyme and meter? Here's an example.
The second week of our poetry section we were assigned to write a ballad. I've read and heard many ballads before and knew this was going to be an easy task, though as I sat down to write I couldn't come up with anything. Oh, I wrote about ten poems before I got to a ballad, all horrible poems and even my so-called "ballad" turned out to be awful. After hours and hours of failure, I finally wrote this:
The Car Key
His hand
was cold and hers was warm
In the winter
night and wind.
Her breath
came out in quick puffs
As she looked
over, behind.
“It’s cold!”
he said and looked above
While
they walked away
Hugging
each other close,
Trekking
from the café.
It wasn’t
long until the cold
Caused
them
to move fast.
They began
to run towards the car
As the winds
began to blast.
“What’s
all this?” a voice cried
From behind
a tall tree,
“Haven’t you
forgotten something?”
And held up
a key.
The creature
startled the sweet couple
As he laughed manically.
They started
running quickly back
To where
they had their tea.
But the creature
had begun to pursue
Snarling
and licking his lip,
Laughing
and grinning quiet dastardly
As the cold
continued to nip.
The couple
slowly started to fall
Into the snow
covered ground.
The maniac
man, the lunatic man
Found
them like a hound.
He cackled
as they struggled to rise
And with
a loud hiss,
He tossed
a sliver key at them, said
“I just want to return this.”
A classmate wanted to know if I was on "crack" after she read it and my professor asked me if this was a ballad in my mind after he said it made no sense whatsoever and contained a "questionable subject"...whatever that's supposed to mean.
Week one was uneventful and very successful, or so my professor said. The assignment was to write an "Anglo-Saxon Alliterative" for which I wrote this:
The
Bard
The night shattered silent
songs,
burdens of a bard battered
by life,
by changing times and cold conflict.
The dawning day determined
his heart
to exile the shadows send
the sun
until
peace was present and torment was past.
The graying bard grievingly
gave
his best song bestowing
it to the Saviour,
a song to send away the Serpent.
The darkness parts descents
and dies,
as
his vernacular verse ventures
a vow.
He sighs swiftly and sounds
his last.
Well, at least it's something.
The third week was...well, pretty awful. I ended up accidentally turning in my unedited version of my iambic pentameter due to a file mix up. We submit everything online through attached documents. Unfortunately for me, he doesn't give out second chances, which I'm OK with. Here's the finished product, which didn't end up as an iambic pentameter anyway.
Fallen
When she heard his sullen deep voice-
She ran quick to find him sitting down by
The mist covered brook, singing his memories
To the birds and the trees that held up the woods.
She ran to embrace him in her warm arms,
But embrace her, he would not-for he was
Different now than she last saw him and had
Nothing left in common except an old
Falling down cottage next to a rugged fence
In between fallen trees and broken dreams crushed
By the sullen elaborate falling world that
Even the trees could not hold up with their pine limbs.
Villanelle's were week four. Mine got a horrible review. He thought it was strange and "awful". Well, his reason behind his review was the subject matter. It was "uninteresting and made no sense". Sometimes poetry doesn't make as much sense as a reader wants. It's all what's relevant to the writer and to the reader his/herself. Sometimes a reader doesn't relate to a poem and that's fine. Just don't grade a poem based on the subject matter for goodness sakes!
Translucent
As
the rocks fall, sigh their goodbye--
They
fall through a tenebrous world
From
up, way up high.
And
gravity ceases to let them fly
In
this crumbling fiery underworld
As
they fall, sigh their goodbye.
You
look upward, Glass Eye--
To
see the waters have swirled
From
up, way up high.
You’re
a translucent bad guy
Viciously
whorled
As
the rocks fall, sigh their goodbye.
You
sound a battle cry--
As
pieces of your puzzle become unfurled
From
up, way up high.
Your
scheming gone awry
Crashing
your fantasy world
As
the rocks fall, sigh their goodbye
From
up, way up high.
If he hates that one, I can't wait to see what he says about my free verse personas for this coming week. *Gulp*
My Darling
My hands never stop trembling
when I think of you, my darling.
My hands never stop trembling
as I drive up towards your house.
My words catch in my throat
as I rehearse the speech I’ve prepared--
the one I’ll deliver to you tonight--
the one I’ve been wanting to say to you
since that first, wonderful night.
My hands never stop trembling
when
I park the car
when
I touch
that silver handle…
and open the door and take that first
step.
My words catch in my throat
when you open the door
after I’ve knocked
hesitantly.
And hesitantly you open that door
and look at me with those light eyes.
And my hands tremble
as I deliver my speech
and
reach for my knife
as you try to retreat
as you stumble-
plead for your life.
The Twilight
His
heart had stopped, the soft beat now gone,
his
eyes closed, saw their last.
His
fingers grasped at nothing now,
his
palms felt nothing, had nothing to hold.
He
was long gone from the world
in
which he so familiarly lived,
in
which he had dreamed of leaving,
one
which he bid a sweet farewell,
to
travel to another one—
one
that was unfamiliar,
one
that he knew nothing about,
a
world—
no--
a
dimension he could barely imagine
one
he only read about in books,
saw
in movies.
What
was the dimension--
what
did it have to offer him now?
What
good is a dimension to a dead man
when
this dead man has nothing to live for?
