John Whitworth A rondel is made like a roundelay, With a rhyme, call it A, and a rhyme, call it B, Which repeats, it repeats, (do you see, do you see?) Until back comes your A like he’s ready to play,
Like he’s ready to play in a holiday way, Until B with a buzz, with a buzz like a bee, Yes it’s B like a bee coming back to the fray, Like a bee or a flea, yes as fit as a flea,
Is your B. And your A with his hey-hey-hey, As brisk as your B with his two times three, Tweedledum, tweedledee, with their two times three, Like a cool cabaret or a mad matinee.
A rondel is made like a roundelay.
D.A. Prince Petrarchan sonnets first eight lines rhyme thus: a b b a; again, a b b a. Tough (for the poet) but the sestet’s way is looser, and the scheme more generous. Quite simple: c d e (repeat). Less fuss. Eight lines of ‘problem’, then the ‘answer’ may resolve itself within the sestet’s play. This flexibility’s a major plus.
Shakespearean sonnets? Quite another thing. Three quatrains, piling up like building blocks or winter clothes laid down inside a trunk. From lesser hands the final couplets bring conclusions obvious as matching socks. They belt up with a terrifying clunk.
Alan Millard O where are you going — you ponderous tale Whose ending unfolds with the speed of a snail? And why must you parrot again and again A repetitive, tedious, tiresome refrain?
O who gives a fig why Lord Randall so ails Or doomed Barbara Allen her downfall bewails Or, fighting at Flodden, King Jamie is slain? Romantic or tragic, your form is a pain. The Sonnet’s delightful, the Rondeau as well, And so is the cunningly-rhymed Villanelle, The Haiku’s compact and the Elegy’s deep, But you, like a sedative, guarantee sleep.
From medieval roots, like a weed, you survived And, nourished by troubadours, flourished and thrived Till, conquering Christendom, bland as green salad, Established at last, you’re baptised as the Ballad.
George Simmers A patter-song’s a vehicle for verbal virtuosity, And, though some look askance at such a lyrical monstrosity, It emanates a quality of literate frivolity By setting words a-dancing at a super-high velocity. A patter-song must bubble with a wild linguistic fizziness And has to be outlandish-ish if it’s to do the bizz- i-ness. (That word, of course, was mauled about and others will be hauled about Until the hearer’s bludgeoned to a state of utter dizziness.) A patter-song gets gusto when it mixes with its smattering Of trisyllabic rhymables a sense of easy chattering. It ransacks the thesauruses for words to fit its choruses; It’s hard to sing but fun to hear and that’s the joy of pattering.
Phoebe Flood A triolet is eight lines long. It doesn’t really sing. But shudders like a dinner gong. A triolet is eight lines long Ding dong ding dong ding bleeding dong God curse the bloody thing. A triolet is eight lines long. It doesn’t really sing.
Fiona Pitt-Kethley Haiku’s a sandwich. Five seven five syllables. All ham not much bread.
Sylvia Fairley Dubberly-dacterly Dish the dimeters, with Choriambs only in Lines eight and four.
Always make sure that the Antepenultimate Line has six syllables, No less, no more.
Penelope Mackie Edmund C. Bentley Should have been informed, gently, That of his own verses in the genre, very few Are good examples of the clerihew.
Ted Hughes wrote How the Whale Became. Your next challenge is to substitute another animal or fish for ‘Whale’ and submit a short story with that title. Please email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 28 September.
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