CPC POETRY CHALLENGE PREVIEW: The Friday Fling Goes Storm Chasing With Ghazals!
This is a special preview for the CPC Friday Fling poetry challenge. Poems should be posted there after the challenge opens Thursday evening at 9 PM EDT.
Friday Fling #238 for June 28th 2013
Where I live we’ve recently experienced a run of late afternoon/early evening thunderstorms.
One each the past two nights with more predicted,
the second cutting my grandson’s final baseball game of the season in half.
So from this perspective it’s the perfect time to write about – thunderstorms!
Dark clouds, wind, rain, thunder, lightning!
A format which might lend itself well to your exposition on thunderstorms is the Ghazal.
As described on ShadowPoetry.com,
A Ghazal is a poem that is made up like an odd numbered chain of couplets, where each couplet is an independent poem.
It should be natural to put a comma at the end of the first line.
The Ghazal has a refrain of one to three words that repeat,
and an inline rhyme that preceedes the refrain.
Lines 1 and 2, then every second line, has this refrain and inline rhyme,
and the last couplet should refer to the authors pen-name… The rhyming scheme is AA bA cA dA eA etc. Such as:
THUNDERSTORMS REACTIVE
Thunderstorms are known for their electric lightning,
which when they appear cause eclectic brightening.
The light and the noise when they strike into the ground
can induce in all life much eccentric frightening.
Muscles contract in the fright of such loud reports,
which causes creatures to feel metric tightening.
Yet some folks are fascinated by storms’ power,
as though mesmerized into tantric heightening.
A few even chase thunderstorms to receive a thrill,
…though it might cause Scotorum pantric wettening.
Ghazal Copyright June 26th 2013 RGD
The only difficult part of a Ghazal is the repeating
(and perhaps slightly modified in the case of two or three repeated words)
end of the second lines in each stanza.
Note that use of this format is only recommended.
This week the Friday Fling muses on summer thunderstorms and tries out the Ghazal format to do so!
Be sure to save time to read and comment intensely on your fellow Pals’ thunderstorm brainstorm.
Then go enjoy a hopefully thunderstorm-free (or laden if that is something you enjoy) weekend!
Fickle Finger of Fate Award for June 21st
Congratulations Michelle!
