FriendBurst Blog

This is a Special preview for the  CPC Friday Fling poetry challenge.  Poems should be posted there when the challenge opens at 9 P.M. EDT.

Friday Fling #138 July 22nd 2011

Next in our July Fling Summer Fun Series schedule, we are going to a Fair! Could be the State Fair, a smaller travelling fair, or even a World’s Fair!

OK so the last hasn’t been seen in the US now for decades. But if you went to one, it probably had an impact! The important thing is we want to write about fairs in general, or one or more specific fairs you enjoyed and remember!

The ballad format is very congenial for this topic, not only because in times past ballads were written about going to the fair, but they were sung at them!

A ballad is a poem usually in various numbers of two to four line stanzas with a rhyme. One stanza or at least a couplet from one acts as a repeated refrain, usually repeated between every one to three stanzas.

Ballads are often made to be sung, so it is useful for them to have some kind of lyrical cadence or beat, such as emphasis on every other or every third syllable. A word such as ballad, for instance, has the emphasis on the first of its two syllables: BAL-lad.

The word “syllables” has emphasis on the first syllable when you say it: SYL-la-bles. It can be a challenge to write so that your lines “flow” in a cadence, but when they are right it can add an extra lyrical quality to reading and even singing them.

Although the famous poem “The Night Before Christmas” is not sung, it has a definite cadence which generally carries througout the narrative:

‘Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas, and ALL through the HOUSE,
Not a CREAture was STIRring, not Even a MOUSE.

Many ballads have an irregular yet set cadence of their own based on the melody they are written for, so the rule above about cadence is not necessarily essential.

This week the Friday Fling writes ballads about summer fairs!

Be sure to save time to read and comment fairly on your fellow Pals’ Fairgoing Flinglets. Then go enjoy your weekend, perhaps involving a fair!

Fickle Finger of Fate Award for July 15th

Congratulations Angel Love!