CPC POETRY CHALLENGE PREVIEW: The Friday Fling Poetically Paints Spring Pastels!
This is a Special preview for the CPC Friday Fling poetry challenge. Poems should be posted there after the challenge begins on Thursday at 9 PM EDT.
Friday Fling #175 April 6th 2012
April is the first full month of Spring, and one thing Spring makes you think of is…pastels. The soft shades of tulips and lilacs, the back petals of daffodils, the in between reds and purples of pflox, etc. The shades of green and red in tree buds. Oh yeah and Easter Egg colors, after you or the Easter Bunny colors them! And Easter dresses, hats, ties and such!
What do those shades signify and evoke for you? How about expressing that in a Pantoum?
WARNING: Pantoums are challenging. Shadow Poetry notes:
The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. The first line of the series recurs as the last line of the closing quatrain, and third line of the poem recurs as the second line of the closing quatrain, rhyming ZAZA.
The design is simple:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
Line 5 (repeat of line 2)
Line 6
Line 7 (repeat of line 4)
Line 8
Continue with as many stanzas as you wish, but the ending stanzathen repeats the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza (as its first and third lines), and also repeats the third line of the first stanza, as its second line, and the first line of the first stanza as its fourth. So the first line of the poem is also the last.
Last stanza:
Line 2 of previous stanza
Line 3 of first stanza
Line 4 of previous stanza
Line 1 of first stanza
It All Started With A Packet of Seeds
It all started with a packet of seeds,
To be planted with tenderness and care,
At the base of an Oak, free from all weeds.
They will produce such beauty and flare.
To be planted with tenderness and care,
A cacophony of colorful flowers,
They will produce such beauty and flare.
With an aroma that can continue for hours.
A cacophony of colorful flowers,
Bright oranges with yellows and reds,
With an aroma that can continue for hours,
Delivered from their fresh flower beds.
Bright oranges with yellows and reds,
At the base of an oak, free from all weeds,
Delivered from their fresh flower beds,
At all started with a packet of seeds.
Copyright © 2001 Sally Ann Roberts
This week the Friday Fling Paints Spring Pastels in Pantoums!
Be sure to save time to read and comment colorfully on your fellow Pals’ Pantoum Pastellery. Then go enjoy the Pastels of the first full weekend of April!
Fickle Finger of Fate Award for March 30th
Congratulations Angel Love!
Awww…thanks for the FF award, Bob! This does look challenging and perhaps will make more sense after a good night’s sleep! 🙄 😆 :love:
This was my first Pantoum, from 2007. It’s not about pastels, in fact it’s not about much of anything. But it’s another example of the format and I followed it then with consideration of some of the features of the format.
I Dream This Too!
(My First Pantoum)
I do! I do dream this too!
It’s just too late to do pantoum
so I will say goodnight to you.
(There is no word rhymes with pantoum!)
It’s just too late to do pantoum.
So I am going to say adieu.
(There is no word rhymes with pantoum!)
(Oh damn! now what rhymes with adieu!)
So I am going to say “adieu.”
I’m not French so I’ve no clue.
(Oh damn! Now what rhymes with “adieu?”)
Now what am I going to do?
I’m not French so I’ve no clue
what rhymes “adieu” much less “pantoum!”
Now what am I going to do?
I fear this poem will be my doom!
What means “adieu” much less “pantoum?”
so I will say goodnight to you.
I fear this poem will be my doom.
I do! I do dream this too!
© 2007 RGD
I think the idea of a pantoum is to so arrange the lines early on that by the end they tie the piece together or at least make sense in the order in which they appear in the last stanza. Clearly mine does not. But I will live to write another that does! I hope!
In a traditional Pantoum:
The lineIs are grouped into quatrains (4-line stanzas).
The final line of the Pantoum must be the same as its first line.
A Pantoum has any number of quatrains. Lines may be of any length.
The Pantoum has a rhyme scheme of abab in each quatrain. Thus, the lines rhyme alternately.
The Pantoum says everything twice:
For all quatrains except the first, the first line of the current quatrain repeats the second line in the preceeding quatrain; and the third line of the current quatrain repeats the fourth line of the preceeding quatrain.
In addition, for the final quatrain, its second line repeats the (so-far unrepeated) third line in the first quatrain; and its last line repeats the (so-far unrepeated) first line of the first quatrain.
The CPC Thematic Attic Thursday challenge this week http://www.friendburst.com/blog/85815/85815/ is about bunnies hopping, so I wrote a Pantoum for that challenge. I strayed slightly from the formal Pantoum structure by adding two more ABAB BCBC stanzas at the end to finish the story (a Pantoum can have as few as three stanzas or quatrains, but around five is more common); I did not Pic n Poem it because of its length. I’m dedicating it to my cohostess Michelle K., who loves the species it’s about. She picked the format and topic of April pastels for this week’s Fling.
Hopping To It
A Pantoum About Productivity
You see that bunny over there
the brown one by the garden gate
with eyes of blue and fur so fair?
He’s really pining for a mate.
The brown one by the garden gate
looks so forlorn and off his feed..
He’s really pining for a mate
to satisfy his need to breed.
Looks so forlorn and off his feed.
God pulled a rabbit from his hat
to satisfy that need to breed.
A fluffy one with eyes that bat.
God pulled a rabbit from his hat,
one with appeal so clearly real.
A fluffy one with eyes that bat.
Her eye work quickly sealed the deal.
One with appeal so clearly real
when she batted her eyes his way.
Her eye work quickly sealed the deal,
and soon he rolled her in the hay.
When she batted her eyes his way
his interest in her did rise,
and soon he rolled her in the hay.
What happened next was no surprise.
His interest in her did rise.
Her tummy swelled up large and round.
What happened next was no surprise.
New bunnies in the field were found.
Her tummy swelled up large and round.
With eyes of blue and fur so fair,
new bunnies in the field were found.
You see that bunny over there?
That’s a rare Australian hare.
She was as well, from Appledore.
They used to have a lonely stare.
They’re not endangered anymore.
She was as well, from Appledore.
where bunnies hop where’er they choose.
They’re not endangered anymore.
There’s plenty of those kangaroos.
Copyright April 5th 2012 RGD