At some point in their writing careers, most poets will try their hand a sonnet or two. There's almost a sense that in order to be a successful poet one must prove an ability to write a successful sonnet. This is probably a burden self-imposed upon poets due to the enormous weight of The Tradition. For centuries the sonnet has been one of the most standard forms of poetry in English and many masters have developed and added to the form over the years (think of Shakespeare, Donne, Hopkins, Rossetti, St. Vincent Millay, and Cummings to name a few), leaving writers of today with a wealth of building blocks from which to construct their own contributions.

In Murray's The Rush To Here (Nightwood Editions, 2007), the sonnet, for the most part,  appears in a traditional form. It varies between couplet, triplet, and quartet stanzas and still retains the octave, volta, and sestet components in order to provide a kind of problem-solution or question-answer form. The poems tend to work in a free verse style, but maintain traditional line lengths. Where Murray really begins to depart from tradition, or rather alter tradition, is in his use of rhyme.

As many before him, Murray uses standard rhyme schemes for his sonnets, but the rhymes themselves take on a different element. Traditional rhyme uses sound echoes to signify a line or stanza's end and, therefore, a change in poetic unit or stitch. Murray uses thought-rhymes (his term). Instead of a word sonically matching with another at the end of a line we find meanings rhyming with meanings. This connotational link between lines and images at once solidifies a unity in each stanza, but also promotes a strong coherence throughout each poem, both elements very much on the minds of serious poets.

The Dear Water Sings

The weather turns chill, my angry new love,
but there's a trickle under the snow,
our world shrinking even as it grows. The dear
water sings, Cold, come and go; Come and go, cold.

Let your shoulders down against the wind,
unbuckle your face like a belt after
a holiday dinner, let your arms untwist.
Base your pleasure on what you feel, right now.

My mouth the harp it was always meant to be,
tongue a strong finger plucking the startled air.
She has starved herself down to the ghost,
down to her own disgust, down to the gasp.

Croon even when the air is sucked from your lungs.
Just be ready to speak, and song will come of breath.

This poem well displays the rhyme form and the skill of the crafter. Some rhymes are concrete and work on the physical level (snow/cold, lungs/breath), but we also find more abstract combinations (love/dear, after/right now, be/ghost). This type of writing restriction is one that gives the poet a focus, that narrow vision that often inspires and pushes creativity. It also leaves the poet with more options than a traditional sound rhyme, to which such devices as slant rhyme have tried to bring new breath and flexibility. This flexability can be used to another advantage: the poet can use the word light with more than one connotation. It can be rhymed with dark to signify an abundance or lack of brightness; rhymed with dawn to signify a time of day; rhymed with heavy to signify weight (both literal and figural), etc. These are examples of some of the rhymes Murray employs throughout The Rush To Here, showing us that rhyme need not be as restricted as one might suppose.

In an age when writers often produce works in the style of their own mentors, merely continuing an already established tradition, George Murray has created something new for poetry that others can add to their repertoires. He has, in a sense, inked his own stamp on form, which, if nothing else, embues poetry with a little more life and opens up realms of creativity for prospective poets.

The Theme for this week is POETRY.
But, there’s a twist - or three.

This week’s challenge was inspired by a dilemma faced by our erstwhile singers at a recent choir practice, which involved people arguing over which verses of a (rather longish) song to do.  The problem was, the lyrics were all rather horrible.  The rhymes in particular were downright unethical - by which I mean, torture of the ears and tongue was involved merely in speaking them aloud.  Which made me think about the fate of so many poor words, once full of grace and beauty, that have over the years been trammeled into the muck of hackneyed insipidness through misuse or overuse.  And so, your task this week, brave writers, is to rescue those poor words from the depths of cliché hell, to bring them back from the brink of meaninglessness, to recapture the majesty and power these words might have once wielded.  Actually, most of the words on their own aren’t in that bad shape, it’s when they're combined in rhyming couplets and triplets that they meet their worst fate.

Your quest - should you choose to accept it - is to take three rhyming words (the cheezier the rhyme, the better), and use each of the words in a context that (a) doesn’t rhyme them with other words, and (b) tries to recapture some innate beatific quality of the word that may have been lost over time.

Now, this does not mean you can’t submit a rhyming poem - as usual, the form of your creative endeavour is completely up to you.  The only rule is that you can’t rhyme the words to each other, or to other similar sounding words.  You also don’t have to submit a poem - the theme of poetry can be interpreted however you see fit.

The following are examples only.  You can pick one of these, or you can make up your own set of three rhyming words (just make sure if you choose the latter, that you list the three words somewhere at the beginning or end of your post, so people know what you were getting at).

Triad Examples:

  Moon, June, croon
  Rain, plain, Spain
  Arise, lies, surmise
  Bees, knees, please
 
   ...you get the idea.

As always - have fun!  Be brave. Go where no writer has gone before.
And the usual reminders: Please remember to include the permalink to your post, and don’t panic if your comments don’t show up right away - they’ll all reappear in good time.

lovely Lily
flower of death
scent of heaven
and angel’s breath

upon my chest
as here I lie
at peace at last
while mourners cry

soon to rest
beneath the earth
where I’ll assist
some flower’s new birth

poem originally posted on Brian Fowler's Blog
Truth is Freedom
July 20th, 2008
Photographer & Poet: Charlene L. Amsden

Winner: Rhyming AND a pretty shweet second line. Though I'm guessing if you brandished the first line, the fourth line wouldn't be such a problem. Not that I'm advocating violence, or anything. Honest.

I am a knife held between palms:
I am not flesh but I do like to breathe.
Make my friends play nice tonight,
Tomorrow they won't leave.

-Edo

Winner: Picking up on a trend and making all of us look like amateurs. Well done, Tim, I'm going to go hide in my cave until I can figure out how to be clever.

The joker jokes, the bat man bats:
Heath Ledger's final punchline approaches.
Deny civil liberties--
A joke is batted in.

-Tim

To pass the timing

Of this very un-fun

Sans-sugar day.

Days one thru three

I experienced glee

And know my body is saying

"Freaking-A!!!!"

Lunch is eggplant:

Subject of rant

Because this veggie taste shit...

"Hooray!"

The higher me

Promises I'll see

The light if I get thru

This tasteless day

I'd like to slap her

And shoot-up some sugar

But I'll resist and keep the bitch

at bay.

Comment in prose

Watch my love for you grow

Give me one last word that rhymes

with "A"

who knew!

summer is a word that brings about glorious connotations of carefree love and saucy sex, surfing and golden tans, bikini lines and movie star sunglasses. almost as if you conjure up another world, where the 8AMtill3.10PM doesnt apply, where the not cool alibi of 'i have an essay due' never arises, and the reigning insomnia finally goes to sleep.

i am far away from the baking heat. i love winter, and i have run away into its frosty fingers. the sun will shine and keep me warm, but it is not threatening.

people are jetsetting all over the world. hong kong is an international hub indeed! here comes a frightening revelation, internet is not fantastic everywhere. the existence of capped internet is being explored. the hijacking of faulty faltering neighboring internet is also happening. there is no law and order in the realm of unprotected wireless.

having lost my tweezer due to my unbridled talent for losing things, i now have determinedly (but not as clearly determined as usual) fuzzy eyebrows. this is disheartening. i wonder where my concern for eyebrow perfection came from, and whether my seemingly unclear eyebrow line needed to be dealt with. i suppose the entire line of daughters off my mothers side (aunts and mother. all six) all have tattooed or drawn eyebrows. mother's is tattooed. she tells me that we share the common defect, the disappearing tail. my eyebrow doesnt end definitively. it trails off stuttering and without an established end, my eyebrows being the damned cliffhanger we dread with no foreseeable end. my cousin's eccentric wife then also tells me of our shared ailment, and offered to 'do my eyebrows for me', whipping out her eyebrow brush and demonstrating on herself her expertise. she IS a beautician after all. we didn't have time, for we had to go for dinner, and my eyebrows lay untouched. and since the disappearance of my tweezers, it has remained sadly so. i ask for opinion on the artificial option, to go decidedly bold and after all, do shave them off. amanda palmer has exceptional freedom in her artistic expression through eyebrow penning, whether they be squiggles or zig zags or a perfect line. well wishing friends tell me : i am not a rock star.

i nod and submit to perfecting the art of finishing an eyebrow.

i have approached the desire to write my own song with hesitation. sad to say, my musical and lyrical talent may not actually exist, when faced with the challenge of whipping up a melody with accompanying words, they come in snippets and without elation. they are sad and tired, these words, and they do not like to rhyme. they fight with each other and the notes bash each other on the head. all in all, it is chaos and not so much a pleasing tune rather than cacophony of misplaced sentiments.

i wish she would break your heart/
then i could offer for us a brand new start
we'd tear and you'll unwind/
i promise i'm a great find
i burnt my apple pie today/
but maybe it was better off this way
smoky smelling, and burnt/
not to leave it on high, i've learnt

i give up, rhyming with meaning is lost on me.

But even still, one finds, in way too many reviews, an apparently almost unstoppable need to waffle on about the efficacy of "traditional" prosody--from whatever perspective. This blog takes the position that making too big a goddamn deal out of prosody qua prosody shortchanges the poets. There are technically brilliant collections that are boring as hell, though I have yet to read a prosodically impoverished collection that was any good. (There's a lot of prosody in good free verse.) If a collection is filled with sonnets, yes, the reviewer should note the fact, as well as evaluate if the author knows what he/she is doing with the sonnet. But we've had enough referendums on the sonnet to be spared another one.

Fair enough?

These are not just words, one after another,
These are your children - you are their mother.
You can send them like troops: to the front line,
Or twist them together and make the sublime.

To write is to think, and to think is to be,
These are the tools that will set you free.
Without them, I think, it is true to chime
Life has no meaning, no rhythm or rhyme.

[This damn poem forced me out of bed circa 1.30am this morning because it would NOT LET ME SLEEP]

Some friends and I embarked on a small assignment – a submission of a 800x1000 image using a selection of stocks to create an image for the theme, nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o’ Rosie. An explanation of the myth can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses

This is my entry:

Rosie, We All Fall Down

[caption id="attachment_49" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hayki - Paşa Rhyme"][/caption]

http://carriontrak.wordpress.com |  http://myspace.com/carrion34

Türkçe Rap'in yetenekli gruplarından İhtilal Record´s (!R) bünyesinin Mc'lerinden biri olan Hayki ´Paşa Rhyme´ adlı solo albümünü çıkardı. ´Paşa Rhyme´ın prodüktörlüğünü kendisine aittir. Albümde ki beatler ise geneli Hayki (On2´Beat´Project) ye aittir. Bunun yanında Patron, Da Poet, Ehlirap, İtaat, Şehinşah ve Miralay´ında beatleri bulunmaktadır. Albüm tam tamına 22 trackten oluşmakta ve tüm kayıtlar İhtilal Record´s da alınmıştır, mix&mastering işlemleri yine Hayki´e aittir. Featler Paşa Rhyme'ın havasını iyice arttırmakla kalmamış ayrıca kalitesinide arttırmış bulunmaktadır. Kısacası featlerden şöyle bahsedeyim Tr Self 'den ´Saian & Patron´, (Saian feati zaten daha önce nete verilmişti olympos'a diss track, Patron ile de 2 parça yapılmış biri 4'lü feat diğeri ise benim favorilerimden olan 33 Punch şarkısı) yaptığı işlerle adından sıkça söz ettiren ´Da Poet´, ( tipik bi şarkı bence elle gösterilen bi şarkı pek değil ) bi hayli zamandır çalışmalarını göremediğim ´Fieber´,(bu şarkıyı da beğenmedim desem kızmazsınız demi? ama Hayki yine çok iyi) çıkarttıkları All Elementz ve GGAAS adlı mixtapeleri ile tüm Türkiye´ye seslerini duyuran Almanyadan ´Defkhan & Fırtına´ ikilisi, (işte bu şarkıda Patron'da var gayet hoş bir parça) Hayki´nin grubu İhtilal mc'lerinden ´Kaplan & Garez´, (bu bence farklı bir çalışma) gene ihtilal record´s başarılı bayan vocali Kraliçe (Yas), (süper bir parça desem abarmış olmam Yas ve Hayki'yi herhalde mutlaka dinleyin) ´Brk´ ile beraber albüm çalışmalarına devam eden İ&R bünyesinden ´Matador´ (tadımlık bi parça, zaten matador pek söylememiş) ve Sakarya'nın güçlü isimlerinden ´Miralay´ (buda fena parça değil haa) gibi isimlere rastlıyoruz. Albümdeki scratchler Almanya´dan ´Depbeatz´,´Da Poet´ ve ´Hayki´ nin pikabından. Kapak tasarımını ´Efkan´ yapmıştır. Neyse yine çok konuştum artık indirin gerçekten dinlemenizi oldukça tavsite ettiğim muazzam albüm ´Paşa Rhyme´ senle başbaşa bırakıyorum, keyifli dinlemeler...

Download:

HAYKI - PASA RHYME (tıkla indir)

Online
www.hayki34.com
www.myspace.com/hayki

-Paşa Rhyme Track List-
01-)Hayki-İntro
02-)Hayki-Yaralı Çığlıklar
03-)Hayki-Kramp(feat.Saian)
04-)Hayki-Frost
05-)Hayki-Onlar(feat.Da Poet)
06-)Hayki-Yüzündeki Hınç Kime
07-)Hayki-Paşa Rhyme
08-)Hayki-150/32
09-)Hayki-33 Punch(feat-Patron)
10-)Hayki-Ölümden Korkuyormusun
11-)Hayki-Battle Text(feat.Fieber)
12-)Hayki-Yorulur Dizler
13-)Hayki-3459(Defkhan&Fırtına&Patron)
14-)Hayki-Kentin Işıkları(feat.İhtilal)
15-)Hayki-Hayatın İnsanları(feat.Yas)
16-)Hayki-Canavar
17-)Hayki-Junlajubalam(feat.Matador)
18-)Hayki-Seni Diledim(feat.Miralay)
19-)Hayki-Anlayışınız Uykuda
20-)Hayki-Tek Yol
21-)Hayki-21.Şarkı
22-)Hayki-Hoşçakalın Şimdilik

-Paşa Rhyme İnstrumental-
Hayki(On2´Beat´Project)(1,2,3,4,6,8,10,11,12,15,17,19,20,21,22)
Hayki&Patron(9,13)
Da Poet(5)
İtaat(7)
Şehinşah(16)
Miralay( 18 )
Ehlirap(14)

Winter brings snowfall
Lovers snuggle by the hearth
Writing sweet couplets

Little Miss Mary had a red bonnet
Down by the river she sang a sonnet

A girl went to bed
When she was tired
She lay down her head
And so I was inspired
I typed at my keys
And breathed a deep sigh
Weak at my knees
I gave a strong cry
Woe is me
Boy with black hair
That soon I will not see
The one that I care
So I sit here and write
Until my departing flight.

I deeply and humbly apologize to Barack Obama for my statement accusing him of talking down to the black community, and then saying that I would like to cut his nuts off. I did not realize my microphone was on the time, and did not intend to make those comments public, because it was the wrong thing to say. If I had known my microphone was on, I would not have made that comment, because it was not stated in the form of a rhyme. With that in mind, I would like to now state several different ways that I should have made the point that I would like to cut Barack Obama's nuts off.

I want to cut off Obama's nuts.

I want to maul off Obama's balls.

I'm gonna act like a punk, and cut off his junk.

I think it'd be rad if I cut off his nads.

I am mad at Barack, so I'll cut off his sac.

I don't mean to brag, but I'm gonna cut off his bag.

I will not rest, see, until I cut off his testes.

I believe now I have addressed this matter with the class and eloquence that it truly deserves. Keep hope alive.

- Matt Manser

Broken is just a ligual threat
Broken is just
You've got no drive
I smell apathy and it does you just fine
Dry mind inside
You've got no drive

Apathy
Apathy to this lifestyle

You're diseased and craving
Not craving what we're paving
Only the mundane
Only the mundane.
_________________________________

I have been writing some WEIRD shit lately.

-Nicole
----------------------------------
Popcorn dreams
bursting at the seams
of my brain –
I might go insane
from the pain
of the multitude
and the magnitude
of them all.
Dreams fall
and land loudly,
echoing proudly
their presence.
Their essence
demands to be heard,
whether sane or absurd;
they crowd my mind
in masses unkind
of every color and kind
and I must refine
them into words.
But sometimes, like birds,
they fly too fast to catch –
too fast to snatch
with my fingers,
and they don’t linger.
I might lose them;
so I must choose then
not to wait
or hesitate
to capture these birds,
to cage these words,
and pin them in flesh
onto paper and mesh
them together in verse.
This is my curse –
to be a poet;
my heart demands I show it
to the world
as a banner, unfurled.
So if you wonder
where the thunder
in the distance comes from,
it’s the sweet and wicked storm
in a poet’s brain
which sends down rain
of rhyme and verse.
For better or worse,
I’d rather feel the pain
of poetic rain
than to be mundane
and go insane.

Written 7/8/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

DOES NO ONE CARE ?

ARE THE FREEMASONS THAT ARE IMPLICATED WITH THE SICK "CHILD OF GOD" CULT THAT I TOLD ABOUT IN MY TEXTS AND PHONE CONVERSATIONS THAT I MADE TO SHADOWMAN ABOVE NOT ONLY THE LAW BUT ABOVE GOD ?

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IN EVERY CITY AROUND THE WORLD

THE PAEDOPHILIC CELL THAT I INADVERTENTLY EXPOSED HAVE POWER BASES AROUND THE WORLD AND IN EVERY CITY.

THEY USE SUGGESTIVE HYPNOTISM ON THEIR AND OTHER CHILDREN THAT THEY TARGET

EVERY PAEDOPHILIC MEMBER HAS A "QUOTA" TO FULLFILL, WHAT THEY DO IS FILM THE ABUSE AND STREAM THIS FOOTAGE UPON THEIR INTERNET SITES.THEIR "QUOTA" IS ALWAYS MET WHATEVER.

EVERY SCHOOL IN EVERY CITY IS TARGETED, THEY MOSTLY SELECT CHILDREN THAT ARE "FORGOTTEN" OR UNLOVED BY THEIR PARENTS OR THAT ARE ORPHENS. (OR AS HAS BEEN EVIDENCED BY THE EVENTS AROUND ME, CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS, AUTISTIC)

THE PAEDOPHILIC STRUCTURE IS SUCH THAT THEY HAVE PLACED WITHIN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM MEMBERS SUCH AS TEACHERS AND GOVERNERS, RIGHT DOWN TO MENIAL WORKERS, INTO POSISTIONS OF TRUST IN ORDER TO  SELECT THE CHILDREN AND TO PRIME THEM

THE PLACEMENT ALSO TAKES PLACE WITHIN THE POLICE FORCE, AND SOCIAL SERVICES.

PRIMING TAKES PLACE OVER A PERIOD OF TIME WITH THE PAEDOPHILIC MEMBERS INTERDUCING SUGGESTIVE HYPNOTHERPY AS A MEANS OF CONTROL.

TO BECOME A MEMBER OF THIS "CHILD OF GOD CULT" THE APPLICANT HAS TO ABUSE AND KILL A CHILD.

ANOTHER PRE-REQUSITE IS TO DEVIOUR CHILD FLESH.

THEY TARGET CHILDREN AT FUNFAIRS AND OTHER NOISY PUBLIC EVENTS AND FILM AND ABUSE THEM IN CARAVANS THAT BELONG TO FAIR WORKERS.THIS HAPPENS AT GHOOSE FAIR IN NOTTINGHAM EVERY YEAR, AND OF COURSE AT FUNFAIRS ALL OVER THE WORLD.

THEY ALSO USE CAMPING SITES SUCH AS 'ELVASTON PARK' IN DERBYSHIRE ENGLAND.

THIS PAEDOPHILIC ORGINISATION IS EXTREEMLY WELL ORGINISED AND CONTAIN MEMBERS HIGH UP WITHIN THE LEGAL SYSTEM.

THE PAEDOPHILIC ORGINASATION (AT LEAST IN NOTTINGHAM) IS ALIGNED WITH THE FREEMASONS AND THE HELLS ANGELS

HOW DO I KNOW ?

READ MY TEXTS AND PHONE CONVERSATIONS THAT ARE RE-PRODUCED HERE. STARTING WITH THE LETTERS THAT I SENT TO DERBY POLICE STATION AND TO VARIOUS MEDIA SOURCES.

MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND.

DURING THE NEXT WEEK I WILL ADD MORE INFORMATION IN REGARD TO THIS PAEDOPHILIC CELL THAT I EXPOSED ASSUMING THAT THE POLICE OR THE MASONIC PAEDOPHILES DO NOT SILENCE ME.

PLEASE HELP ME BY TELLING EVERYONE THAT YOU MIGHT KNOW ABOUT THIS. E-MAIL THIS TO AS MANY MEDIA SOURCES AS POSSIBLE.

PLEASE HELP ME.

Down is how I feel right now. The love of my life has been sick for more than a year now… yet the doctors still don’t have a clear diagnosis of what’s ailing him. Just a pulse rate that is too fast and a bp that is too low.

Things would be much better if we weren’t continents apart. At least I would be there for him. At least we would be together — physically — instead of being together only through the internet.

Sure, we're getting by. We spend at least 10 hours a day burning our internet connection, so in some ways we  are together, except that we cannot hold each other's hand. But this week, even the pleasure of being with him daily has been taken away from me.

He is at the hospital right now, and he will stay there for a week. It’s just his third day away and already I am feeling so helpless and down…

down…

down…

I feel like crying, but I don’t want to. He said he needs me to be very strong, and strong I will be. For him. For me.

But he didn’t say I cannot write him a poem. So I try, but I can’t. He is my poetry. My pen refuses to budge because he’s not with me.

So I'm down, but I don't want depression to get me. I'm gonna do something, even if it means I have to cheat. I'm gonna  post something I’ve written before… when we were in the same situation… After all, it is as much my poem now as it was then.

A Love Letter for cP

I sing hymns of hope

At the top of my lungs

And beg the wings

Of the wind to carry

My songs and lay them

Neatly upon your heart;

I ask the eagles to fly

Across the horizons

To bring you my love:

Gentle as the breeze,

Lovely as a dove.

I bare the contents

Of my heart to the

Sympathetic moon and pray

That when she smiles at you

Tonight, you’d know

That as you swim the oceans

To capture my smile;

As you move the mountains

To reach for my hand;

I am trudging winding paths

Towards you, my love!

//Sherma Benosa

06 November 2007; 11:57pm

The sessions will take place each Saturday afternoon from 2pm until 2.30pm, and will involve stories and rhymes for children and their parents or carers.

The sessions are all free of charge and booking is not required – just turn up to the library on the High Street in Stamford. The sessions will also continue throughout the summer holidays.