Furry Writers' Guild Forum

Poetry writing

I’ll put a brief one right here. I’m thinking I’ll submit this one to [adj][spec]. Any comments?

Procyon Prowling

In silence she slinks through the silver-dewed garden,
Wandering walkways, wishing for sustenance.
Her three ring-tailed children thirst in the home den
For this matron of many, a milk-bearing clan queen. [4]

Soon will she show them, in single file leading,
Walking through woodland to where there is food
And water for washing as will be required
To live on their own in lonely repose. [8]

But now has she need of nourishing foodstuff
Herself, before comes here the herald of dawn.
Black eyes like buttons, buried in face mask,
Search not so well for her sight is too poor. [12]

All growing around her too green are the berries,
The sweet roots not ripened or succulent yet.
Thus takes she her tread to the tall-hanging feeder
For birds it’s intended but better than none. [16]

Alas! Though long-reaching and laboring efforts
She makes, it gains nothing. A mumble, a hiss,
And she turns to the trash cans, a top that is loose.
She knows it so well as she nears it again. [20]

Brief clatter. She’s in. A complaint from a dog
Afar wills it elsewise but wonder, none comes
To break up her feasting in bones and waste matter
Abandoned and left to best care for her now. [24]

The brood that is waiting will be cared for also:
No dearth of dark faces to delve in the night.

[edited to incorporate some suggestions received, and I thank you all]

As mentioned, sonnets have proven one of the most challenging sorts of poems, personally. My hats off to you for making it look so incredibly easy.

I highly enjoyed this poem. The wording with the rhythm made it a little difficult to sink into, but somehow that difficulty seemed to add to the elegance.

So here’s one QR won’t take due to possible copyright infringement. Painfully simply rhyme-scheme. Written when my dad had complications after open heart surgery. It’s simple, it’s childish, and it was the perfect emotional siphon shrugs

“Superman”

Nothing will ever slow him down
Taking buildings in a single bound
Faster than sound

With muscles that are stronger than steel
You had better believe that he’s real
Cuz your fate’s sealed!

He’s Superman
Ever strong
Flying high and
Righting wrongs

He can handle anything and more
Bring it on- he’ll settle this score
Like never before!

Just call out for him day or night
He’s always ready for a fight
Hold on tight!

He’s Superman
Ever strong
Flying high and
Righting wrongs

But even Superman can be drained
Bloodied, beaten, twisted in pain
Can’t be in vain!

Get up Superman- you have to win!
You can’t back down after where you’ve been
It’s a sin!

You’re Superman
Ever strong
Flying high and
Righting wrongs

Open your eyes and power through
There’s still so much you have to do
I need you!

You’re still my hero day and night
And I’ll help you through this fight
Just hold on tight

Cuz you’re Superman
Ever loved
Flying high to
The stars above

You’re Superman
Ever loved
Flying high to
The stars above

My Superdad…

One more poem. I don’t know if I’ll ever try to get this one published, even in QR. It’s one of the few poems that managed to cling to my memory from my long-lost poetry journal. Originally written for a close friend of mine, I had turned it into a gift for my s-mom the last time I ever saw her. Simple, but sweet. Has an AABCCB rhyme scheme that was fun to work with.

“Deep Blue Sea”

One stress-filled day
We’ll run away
Just the You and Me
And take a vacation
From civilization
To walk beside the Sea

We’ll take our fears
And all our tears
And take society
And on that day
We’ll shove them away
As we stand beside the Sea

Once again
we’ll learn my Friend
How to live care-free
And to let go
of all we know
As we sit beside the Sea

This dream we’ll achieve
if we believe
In the You and Me
But for now we’ll strive
to survive
Until the day
that we can lay
Hand in hand
on the sand
Beside the Deep Blue Sea

Thanks for the compliment and for sharing yours, Munchkin. Did QuarterReads actually say there was a “copyright” issue with that? Shows how little they know of what they’re doing, I fear. The name is trademarked. A single word can’t be copyrighted. And you can use a trademarked word or phrase as long as you indicate that it is such and somewhere identify the trademark holder.

I’ll post more in a few minutes about the difference between sonnet form and Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.

puts on teacher hat

Clarification on some verse forms.

I’m remembering this from my undergraduate years, so I may be a bit vague. Still, a check of wikipedia seems to confirm what I recall.

The wikipedia article on the sonnet form is quite good actually and covers all the bases. A sonnet (sometimes called “Italian sonnet” since it originated in that language and country) is a pretty strict form for poetry. There are variations, particularly in the rhyming scheme, but it always consists of exactly 14 lines and almost always uses Iambic pentameter. That is, five metric stresses per line, and each of those five “feet” contains just two syllables with the accent on the second. Variations allow different rhyming schemes, and many sonneteers do insert an odd anapest or trochee occasionally.

Nordic/Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic alliterative verse is quite different from most of the poetry we had to read when we were in school. The classic example in English literature is the epic poem Beowulf.

Alliterative verse does not use rhyming lines, nor does it use the metrical conventions of the classical period or Romance languages, the iambs, trochees, anapests, and so forth that we had to count out and mark up back in junior high school. (Probably all that is one of the things that made so many people “hate” poetry.)

Anyway, the common alliterative form uses alliteration (that is, the beginning sounds of certain stressed syllables are supposed to match according to specific rules) and stresses. Typically there are four stresses per line (also called “lifts”,) but any number of syllables. The alliterated syllables should begin with the same sound. (Initial vowels or glottal stops and sometimes “H” are all considered to match each other. Near matches, such as “V” with “B” or “D” with “T” are sometimes used but you can “lose points” for that.)

Each line is divided into two “verses” with a pause or caesura between them. These are also sometimes called “half lines.” The first stress in each half line must alliterate with the same stress in the other half line of the same line of poetry. The second stress in the first half line may optionally alliterate with those as well, but this is not required. The final stress of the second half line (or full line) does not do so, but may alliterate with the first stress of the next line.

All this sounds more complicated than it really is. The form allows fairly easy flow of ordinary text, with some changes in word order to match the needed alliteration or stress pattern.

“Procyon Prowling” above keeps to the Beowulf form for the most part. It isn’t a sonnet, because it is too many lines, and has too few stresses per line even if we allow for omitting the rhymes as some sonnet writers have done.

Good examples of the sonnet in English are not hard to find. Shakespeare wrote many, as did his contemporaries and near contemporaries like John Donne. More modern sonnets are found especially in 19th century poetry, and one of my favorites from that time is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins played fast and loose with the form but did make it work.

And that’s the end of today’s lecture. Questions or corrections allowed.

teacher hat removed

Untitled [Most of my poems are untitled]

I saw the sun rise in the west at midnight
Wearing braids of polished copper.
She spake her secret name in time,
the moon was subsumed by meltwater.

The slow evening came by noon to twilight,
the verdant clouds were raining stars.
The white shone below the silhouette
when lightning struck the skyline.

The dim crept to the doorstep, quiet
immersion in the best of elements.
The djinn squall in the running wilderness,
tones in the wind and waterfall.

No fur that I can see, but nice poem, Dwale.

I take it from your signature line that you are a fan of the tentmaker poet. I am too. FitzGerald’s translations (some say paraphrases) are especially nice, but other translations are also interesting and show that ol’ Fitz didn’t do too bad a job of catching the thoughts.

If I can step in and give my two cents, this is where I’ve run into troubles while working on Hunting, 1882. You’re right in saying that the sonnet originated in Italy (in the 12th century, to be precise), and that it’s extremely tied to my country’s culture, but while most of English poetry is based on the Iambic pentameter, Italian poetry is almost always written in Hendecasyllables. It comes from Latin poetry, and has only one obligatory stressed syllable at the end, mostly due to Italian language having very few specific rules on stressing. It’s why you can see letters like è, ò or à in Italian - they’re no different than e, o or a, but they’re showing what syllable has to be stressed, and can sometimes change the entire meaning of a word – or why I never had to count the feet while studying it, at least until we started working on Latin poetry.

The only English example I can think of an Hendecasyllable is Keats’ Endymion, with the verse:

A thing of beauty is a joy for èver

showing the obligatory stress on the penultimate syllable.

This made trying to figure out a way of writing poetry in English unbelievably hard. I had no idea what I was doing most of the time, but overall it was pretty fun. I don’t have the time to work on my grasp of the metric scheme, unfortunately.

(sorry for taking this long to answer, looking up all specific terms in English took me a while)

(also I’m going by memory, so this might not be 100% accurate)

Thank you for the additional details. I know I’ve heard of the hendecasyllabic line, probably in connection with Petrarch, and I’m sure you’re right. Wikipedia (and my high school teachers) of course only dealt in English verse, so their definition of the sonnet as “four quatrains and a couplet” or “two sextets and a couplet” and always Iambic pentameter come from the English poets of the Elizabethan era. roughly 1558-1609 or so.

Unfortunately I am very poor at Italian, though I have studied Latin, Greek, and French. When you have more leisure, perhaps you can bring some examples to us. Of course, we’d be happy to see your own writing as well.

I write a poem every 6-18 months or so, sometimes more when prompted to.

Some of my favorites:

“South Carolina”- Melancholy poem about the state I grew up in.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15007011/

“Seer On the Way”- A philosophical poem that encompasses a lot of ideas.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13823338/

“To Where I Cannot Know”- Angst over a transformative experience I had some time ago.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11613267/

“Rabbits”- Inspired by WWI trench poetry.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12259997/

“Without Margins”- Inspired by a fever dream about my characters developing free will and rebelling against me.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3587723/

“Sing My Love”- The most erotic poem I ever wrote, for the man who is now my fiance.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3925186/

“Urban Fox”- A love poem, vulpine style.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3901820/

Also, I’ve done lyrics for several of Pepper Coyote’s songs, including “District Line”
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4295052/

Hello and good day. I am Shining River.

Although I have known of the Furry Writers Guild for at least two years, and have read through some of the profiles and featured writings of its members, I have only recently been clued in on the discussion taking place here.

If you have read my essay published at the website Adjective Species] Finding the Animals in Modern Poetry, thank you for taking the time to do so. While the lack of responses to my essay there does not trouble me, having noted a number of other previous Adjective Species writings that have lacked response, it does leave me with some questions.

If you have read the essay. . .

Do you believe that modern poetry with animal themes has much value to you?

In the three days following the posting of my essay, website Adjective Species had links each day to three poems by modern poets, both prominent and obscure, that I had posted to my DreamWidth journal over the course of a year or more. Did you read any of them? If you did read them, did they prompt you to continue reading my DreamWidth journal which now contains over fifty modern animal themed poems? (I acknowledge that it may not have been obvious that I had these other poems available to readers.)

Do you know of, or have you attended, a poetry reading that was specifically furry themed? Would you like to see one occur in the future? (Since 1999 I have been to only four fur cons, so my knowledge of writing tracks at cons is very limited.)

Thank you.

Edit: I don’t know why I’m seeing strike-out lines through much of this post. I’ll be more careful in the future! : 0
Edit: Thank you Chipotle!

Hi there, and thanks very much for your interesting and informative article! I did read most of the poems, and swung by your Dreamwidth to check out a few more.

I’ve always been interested in animal poems, and I’m glad they’re still being created. I’d love to see more within the fandom.

Doing a poetry reading is high on my agenda for a future con when I have more material and experience. I did run a poetry panel at the last ConFuzzled, but as I only got a pawful of attendees it turned into an open discussion rather than a talk - which probably worked better!

Welcome to the discussion, Shining River.

Oh my. First a confession: i’ve been a little sour on Adjective Species of late, which has absolutely nothing to do with your unusual and interesting contributions on poetry. I admit I only skimmed over the material, partly because I’ve been so busy at work lately and feeling rather overwhelmed. I had marked it out for later reconsideration. Normally I would have commented on those articles, but of late I feel that I have said too much on the site and might be making myself unpopular. I missed the Dreamwidth connection on that first reading, but will certainly follow up on it.

Yes! I am very interested in animal poetry. There is never enough of it, though there are certainly some wonderful examples in existence. I don’t get to furry cons very often because I don’t like travel and usually avoid crowds. I would certainly attend a poetry reading and/or a poetry writing panel if there were one at a con I attended. I’ve been at MWFF every year from 2004 to 2008, but have not gone back since because it has grown so loud and rowdy. In 2012 I was at Furry Connection North and Indy Fur Con. I hope to make Indy again this year.

I’d even be inclined to make a special effort to attend a con that had poetry events. However, I refuse to fly on commercial airlines any more, so that limits my range somewhat.

I’m hoping to see this thread on FWG grow into more discussion both of actual poems and the techniques of poetry writing. The response so far has been encouraging.

Thank you, Altivo, for starting this poetry discussion. I think I know what you mean about commenting on Adjective Species. There are good essays and stories to comment on, but when there are few comments, one may feel like one is dominating the topic, or coming across as a compulsive commenter. I sometimes feel that way, and I wish more people would participate.

I enjoyed your Beyond Mundane Horizons, over on Alasso!

(Just as a note, text in [brackets] may be interpreted as formatting codes on any forum that uses some version of BBCode like this one does. The strikeout is happening because [nobbc]"[s]"[/nobbc] means “strikeout” in BBCode. If you want to get away with it – like I just did – you can wrap it in “[nobbc][nobbc]…[/nobbc][/nobbc]” tags, but it might be simpler just to type “(a)(s)” as shorthand for That Particular Site.)

Thank you Chipotle!

Shining River: Thanks for the compliment on the Allasso piece. I was pleased to get that one out there after some editors failed to see in it what I intended. Brian apparently got it.

I think the reason some [adj][spec] articles don’t draw comments is not necessarily that they are unworthy or uninteresting. My observation is that earlier material almost always had a comment thread, but after some unpleasant political arguments appeared in a couple of threads, people (including myself) became more reticent about saying much.

Poetry is not usually a political matter, though some of mine do have a political slant. It might be that you saw fewer comments because of the widespread American “I hate poetry” attitude. However, as we’ve seen here, there is still a lot of interest. I’m looking forward to whatever compilation Lunostophiles can pull together now. Who knows, maybe we can even come up with a furry poetry anthology some time in the future.

Here’s something I thought of after today’s Coffeehouse Chat, which focused on beta readers.

A couple of times, I’ve posted poems in the critique board here and had people respond “I don’t know enough about poetry to critique this”. Now, while it’s great to get responses like “your scansion is off here” or “nice trochee!”, a gut reaction of I like this / I don’t like this is helpful too.

I think the nicest compliment a poet could possibly receive would be “I don’t usually read poetry, but I loved this”. :slight_smile:

(NB: nobody has yet said “nice trochee!” to me. Or, as far as I know, to anyone else ever.)

That’s because we’re all anapestic, dear Husky. ;D

Also! Guys guys guys, it’s World Poetry Day tomorrow!!

http://www.un.org/en/events/poetryday/

(Darn thing always sneaks up on me. It’s worse than Christmas.)