It was the night before Christmas and all through the house
Everybody was writing, except for my wife.
Though that may sound impressive, it’s not, for you see,
All our kids have moved out, leaving just her and me.
I’ve been pounding the keyboard for hours without rest,
In an effort to pen this in pure anapaest.
There are times things don’t turn out the way we had planned,
But it seems that my wife doesn’t quite understand.
She continually bugs me as I try to write,
“Are you planning to get one more thing done tonight?”
“Though it is time consuming,” at last I declare,
“Every word must be placed with the utmost of care.”
“Well, I’m sure you work hard not to make a mistake,
But I really think you ought to give it a break.
We have presents to wrap, and there’s food to prepare.
There are things you could do besides just sitting there.”
“It’s a type of a poem Dad told us to write
About Christmas. I hope to get finished tonight.”
“Then I think that you’re wasting your time. Don’t you know
That the prompt for that writing was two weeks ago.”
I had help from my older cousin, she helped me a lot because i was stuck for help!
Hi Neeq,
ReplyDeleteThis poem is great fun! It really made me smile. And it's so interesting to read something that is actually attempting to address the act of writing itself. Well done!
Much of this is not anapestic, however, and I would recommend that you talk to Mr. Savage if you're having difficulty understanding the technical requirements of this task.
Also, you need to think about the relationships within the poem. If the narrator/voice is an independent, married chap, you might need to explain why his Dad is telling him what to write.
Well done to you and your cousin, though! It's a very charming post.
Helen
Hello again Neeq, I'm afraid I can only really second what Helen has already wrote. As she says, you haven't quite got the grip of this new poetic form, but there's nothing wrong with that; after weeks working on sonnets and iambic pentameter it's only natural that it would be difficult to adapt immediately to a new form, but if you talk to Matthew then he can clarify the details of the form.
ReplyDeleteAside from that I again have to agree with Helen's use of the word "charming" as I can't come up with a better word to describe the poem; indeed I would go as far as to say that its disarmingly charming, in that I was writing on Angeleyez' blog that I don't ordinarily enjoy poems that are self-consciously written on the subject of writing poems as I find they invariably lack originality or inspiration, but what benefits your poem is that it rather parodies that type of writing and never takes itself too seriously, and I was consistently and pleasantly surprised by the amount of subtle and offbeat humour in the poem.
But in any case, regardless of the technicalities of anapestic writing, this is a perfect poem to finish the year and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading,
Well done,
Eoghan
Very amusing, I was hoping to find something a little light-hearted with this task, an anapaestic rhythm would have suited the tone perfectly as the dee-dee-dum often creates the basis for an upbeat poem. However, as the others have mentioned, not all of it fits into this meter. I think the original line that you have parodied in your opening starts with “t’was”, which would immediately launch you into the anapaest you were aiming for. Some of your lines fit quite well into anapaest, maybe you could tease out the ones that work and contrast them to the others. For example, lines 2, 6, 8, 15 work really well, and a few more besides. You just need a little practise to get out of the habit of iamb I think! Also, your poem doesn’t fit with the rhyme scheme that the task stated.
ReplyDeleteAll of this considered, I really enjoyed it, you have mastered placing dialogue within a poem, and have created a really amusing poem. If ever breaking the rules came out with a positive result, this is it! Maybe try to stick more rigidly to the task next time though…