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Showing posts with label quinzaine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quinzaine. Show all posts

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Quinzaine: Secrets Kept(?)

#1
I have a secret to share.
Can I trust you to
keep it safe?

#2
Secrets can tear friends apart.
How else would they know?
Was it you?

#3
Secrets are chasms between.
Can you feel the di-
vide growing?

#4
Everyone has their secrets.
Why do we keep them?
Is it fear?



On inspiration for this piece:  I pulled from Poetic Asides's 2015 April PAD Challenge:  Day 2.  The theme for this prompt - in case you were unable to figure it out - was secrets.

A note on form:  The above is a set of quinzaines.  The quinzaine is a short form consisting of only fifteen syllables.  As with any short poem, such confinement can be quite tricky.  The first line (7 syllables) is a statement; the next two lines (5 and 3 syllables) are a question related to the first line.  Upon first coming across this form, there seemed to be no definite on whether the two lines together made the question or if they had to be two separate questions.  And so, I tend to write them in pairs (or in this case a pair of pairs) where one uses the last two lines as a single question and the other two separate questions.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Quinzaine: Truth in Fairy Tales

#1
Fairy tales are based in truths.
Is yours such a tale?
What's your truth?

#2
Adults need fairy tales, too.
Can only children
see the truth?

#3
Fairy tale magic exists.
Is not magic true?
What's your tale?

#4
Fairy tales hold truth within.
Do you believe in
fairy tales?



A note on form:  I came across the quinzaine approximately two and half years ago.  It's a short form consisting of only fifteen syllables.  As with any short poem, such confinement can be quite tricky.  The first line (7 syllables) is a statement; the next two lines (5 and 3 syllables) are a question related to the first line.  Upon first coming across this form, there seemed to be no definite on whether the two lines together made the question or if they had to be two separate questions.

Thoughts on writing in form:  So, without any definitive, I have always written in pairs (or an even grouping); one poem containing a single question and one poem containing two separate questions.  Writing two questions, when one is limited to three syllables is hard.  So when I wrote the first two for this grouping, I ended up with a pair containing only one question a piece.  That was about five months ago.  I tucked them away knowing I'd eventually come back to them (because with out their counterparts I could not allow them to exist--crazy, I know).  And so I did find my way back.  In the process,  I ended up altered the first line of one of them (#2), but still used it with one of the new ones (#3).

Unearthing themes:  Since I've always written these in pairs (or even groupings), having a theme to tie them together seems only natural.  In many cases the theme becomes the Title of the series.  As I reviewed the original two, which were written to "fairy tales" as the theme, I noticed that there was another thread linking the two together.  So while constructing the additional poems, I tried to incorporate "truth" in as well.  This of course meant both themes would somehow stand together for the title.