Mans Best Friend

Mans Best Friend

A faithful heart to be forever mine
Golden fur to bury my teary face
Never to walk in a straight line
Pouncing paws, I hope he doesn't race 

A Feline's Silhouette

A murky, pale moon masks a silhouette;

A silhouette so eminent to night.

With eyes that gleam, she waltzed a swift duet.

Her paw, so quick, leads dances, not a fight.

The Cheetah

Before it pounces to the prey with claws

The animal must run an extra mile,

Running has always been the special flaw

Since a cheetah is always so agile.

Owl

A bird of prey that glides with grace: so slow
is she. The mice are cars below this plane.
The shrews flee too. Her chest is white like snow.
Her claws rip through the night. She's inhumane.

Task 2: Mastering the dreaded iamb

A couple of things before I begin:

1. PLEASE make sure you have all posted your weekly posts by the deadline. Some of you fell a bit behind to start with, and, as a result, the blog has made a slightly slower start.
2. PLEASE make sure that, as well as completing each task yourself, you ALL find time to comment on each other's posts that week too. Wait until the teacher comments have been posted, and then add your own thoughts. Be positive, of course, but don't be afraid to point out how it could be improved too. 

Right, now for this week's task. Conquering the horrible IAMB!!!

I will start by quoting from some of your poems, to show where you went wrong (and right).

This is a successful iambic pentameter:

A stunning view of Glasgow in my room

Look at the stresses, which will be obvious when you read it out loud:

a STUNning VIEW of GLASgow IN my ROOM

It is a perfect 'dee-DUM' rhythm, with 5 iambic feet, as is this one:

My mind, my fear begins to chill my skin.

These are successful iambic tetrameters:

The crowded sounds of Chinatown...
I know this place, I know its feel...

With each one, notice how it begins with an UNSTRESSED syllable, and then follows a dee-DUM pattern throughout.

And these are each a perfect iambic trimeter (3 feet):

But what else can I say?
While playing in the snow...

And now for some which didn't quite work...

Here's one from 'The City of Singapore':

The colours and lights of downtown.

'Downtown' is tricky, because I guess you could argue it sort of works with either stress - and if you argue strongly that it is pronounced "downTOWN", then I suppose we can tolerate the preceding "of" being stressed. But even if we accept all that, the rhythm is still wrong in the middle, because "and lights" has been placed so that we stress "and" rather than "lights". See how swapping the two nouns around solves this though:

The lights and colours of [downtown].

And what about this from 'A Cold Night in Glasgow':

Watching the building glow

Almost a perfect iambic tetrameter too, if it weren't for the first word, which would have to be pronounced watchING. How about:

i WATCH the BUILDing GLOW...

And this one from 'A memorable place':

Beaches cleaner than the sky

The reason this one slips up is because it only has 7 syllables. All we need as an extra syllable at the start, so push the first syllable of "beaches" into second place, and the whole line then works perfectly:

the BEAches CLEANer THAN the SKY

This pentameter (from 'Stonehenge') is ALMOST iambic, except for the words "my dog", because it sounds much more natural with the emphasis on "dog", but that throws out of kilter the iambic beat:

A life, a dream, concealed in my dog days

It's difficult to remedy that without messing up the rhyme, so this might be an example of where a different idea or phrase is necessary, and just 'tinkering' with the line might not be enough.

So, you see, it IS possible, in ALL your poems. It just takes perseverance, and a CLOSE study of:

• all the Task 1 poems (including the comments);
• last week's task (in full);
• and the whole of this post.

Feel free to redraft your attempt and post it for comments, as an extra piece, if you want. You will feel SO satisfied when you master this - just as you will feel SO annoyed if lots of the others master it this week and you are left behind.

Right, so what do I expect you to do for Task 2?

Well, we're not quite ready for a sonnet yet, but we should be by next week. This week, I simply want:

1. a four-line poem (otherwise known as a quatrain);
2. with an a-b-a-b rhyme scheme (i.e. Lines 1 and 3 rhyme, as do lines 2 and 4);
3. written in iambic (i.e. dee-DUM) pentameters (i.e. 5 feet/beats/stressed);
4. about an ANIMAL of your choice.

Here is my attempt...

Orang Utan

A flash of rusty fur enflames the air;
A branch breaks off and crashes to the ground;
I squint to catch a glimpse of orange hair:
This fiery beast refuses to be found.

See what you can come up with, and remember:

• quatrain
• a-b-a-b
• 5 beats
• dee-DUM

Have fun, and good luck!

Your deadline is: midnight on Sunday 24th February.

A Prison I Love

A wasteful city; pollution array.

A life, a dream, concealed in my dog days.

The beach, the trees, so cool; breezy.

Conflicting feelings surround me

But what else can I say?

At the end of the day…

Malaysia,

In Asia,

My cage.

My stage.

A memorable place

A memorable place

city lights in every single sight

A tourism place from day till night

Beaches cleaner than the sky

I could lay there till I die

Culture in every soul

Brought in every goal

This place I think

An ancient link

My past

At last

A Cold Night in Glasgow

A stunning view of Glasgow in my room

All the buildings are covered by the moon,

As November is closing by

The chance of Winter is quite high,

Watching the building glow,

While playing in the snow,

The mighty sales,

It never fails,

Oh me,

Oh my!

The City of Singapore

The City of Singapore

The City of Singapore, beautiful

The sound of its people, oh so peaceful,

The Colours and lights of downtown

The crowded sounds of Chinatown,

There is not a service

Where workers are nervous,

The Bubble Tea

Wish it was free,

But it

Is not.

Epping Forest

The leaves and trees become the heart within.
My mind, my fear begins to chill my skin.
I know this place, I know its feel
The joy, the love, the peace and zeal
Pick up a branch and hide
Down low where dirt resides
My life
Is here.

Task 1 - Rhyme and Meter

You all know what RHYME is - and it will be one of the first things you encountered when reading poetry as a young child. "Twinkle twinkle little BAT, How I wonder where you're AT" etc. However, as you are going to find, it is very difficult to use rhyme effectively when writing poems of your own. Too often, the quest to find a word that rhymes ends up changing the meaning of the poem altogether - like points on a railtrack switching the train to a totally different course. However, it is a challenge that is well worth pursuing - i.e. how to find a rhyme whilst not diverting the tracks of your meaning at the same time. And it is a challenge I am setting you this week too.

But, not one to keep things TOO simple, I am also setting you another challenge - and that is to do with METER. Meter is the term to describe the rhythm of a poem - and how that rhythm is created through the number and order of all the syllables in any one line. Those of you who listen to music will know how all music has a BEAT of some sort; some music has a strong and regular beat, other music has a less clear rhythm (and so would be very hard to dance to too!) This week, you are going to be writing poetry with a very regular beat. Here is how...

The simplest type of beat (or, as it is called in poetry, FOOT) is one that goes 'dee-dum' - i.e. made up of TWO syllables, where the SECOND syllable is stressed. This type of foot is called an IAMB; and this type of meter is called IAMBIC. Here is an example of iambic verse:

I cannot write iambic verse. 
My poem goes from bad to worse.

See how each line is written in TWO-SYLLABLE beats, with the stress (or emphasis) on the second in each pair. Try reading it with a hand clap on each stressed syllable:

i CANnot WRITE iAMbic VERSE
my POem GOES from BAD to WORSE.

This is simple, iambic meter.

Notice also how many feet (or beats) there are in each line. Four. We call these lines tetrameters:

• 5 feet = pentameter
• 4 feet = tetrameter
• 3 feet = trimeter etc.

Now look (or rather LISTEN) to how easily the regular rhythm can be broken. What if I had written 'can't' instead of 'cannot'; or 'poetry' instead of 'poem'? This would have totally changed and disrupted the rhythm of each line:

I can't write iambic verse
My poetry goes from bad to worse.

In the first line, there is one syllable MISSING:

I can't [***] write iambic verse.

Whereas, in the second line, there is one syllable too MANY.

My poeTRY goes from bad to worse.

Right. Now for your challenge. In a few weeks' time, we are going to try to produce some SONNETS. (VERY difficult!). But, in preparation, this week we are just going to play with rhyme and meter. I would like you to write a poem which:

• uses ONLY iambic meter;
• is 10 lines long;
• begins with two 5-feet lines (i.e. pentameters)
• then has two 4-feet lines, two 3-feet lines, two 2-feet lines and, finally, two 1-foot lines.
• rhymes each pair of lines.

Your poem should be about a place (city/country) that you know particularly well.

To help you, here is an example, although I cannot vouch for how good it will be since I am rushing it off for you right now! It's about a famous landmark in London...

View from Canary Wharf

The city snakes beneath the heavy sky,
The shadows tall, the river crawling by.
Commuters swarm; like locusts, they
Descend upon the dying day.
From high above I see
Them fighting to break free.
The dusk descends.
The chaos ends.
And time
is mine.

See what you can do, and remember: 

• Lines 1-2 = rhyming, iambic pentameters
• Lines 3-4 = rhyming, iambic tetrameters
• Lines 5-6 = rhyming, iambic trimeters
• Lines 7-8 = rhyming, iambic dimeters
• Lines 9-10 = rhyming, iambic monometers.

All on a powerful place of your choice.

BY MIDNIGHT ON SATURDAY 9TH FEBRUARY PLEASE.Good luck!!! :)