Exercise 1.3, Enjambments and Caesuras

End Stop: When a line of poetry has one line of thought that ends with the line.
Enjambment: When the line of thought continues to the next line.
Caesura: A natural stopping place or change of train of thought within one line, such as a comma or just plain, old change of subject.

Exercise 1.3--Enjambments and Caesuras (or Cesuras, if you're American): Write five pairs of blank iambic pentameter on set subjects (see titles). The first of the pair end stops and has no caesuras, the second has enjambment and at least two caesuras. Jolly good luck (abridged instructions, P 31 of my edition of the text.)

(OK, the formatting got wonky. Let's try this again. )

1. Outside the Window
          A. The night in darkness sighs in silent peace,  
               a light the only sight my eyes can see.
        
          B. The light, a yellow golden ball, distills 
               itself through still and cooling air and dark.

2. What I'd Like To Eat
          A.  A soup of spice and chicken meat and corn 
               with herbs, cool onion, broth and creamy cheese.

          B.  The cheese is smooth, a gleaming counterpoint 
                to bright and sharp cilantro tang, oh joy!

3. A Recent Dream
           A. I dreamt a court and jury vigilant
               was I on trial or was it he who erred?

           B. The judge, his face obscured by hood of dark 
                jet black, awaited jury member votes.

4. Pesky Tasks Overdue
           A. I need a tub to wash my dog today, 
                too late I see the clock has gone past noon.

            B. Gaspode has gotten bold, his scent a dark 
                 and angry warning: All you, stay away!

5. My Body (A Complaint)
            A. My skin is thin and veins are blue and big, 
                 the knee a map of wild imagining.

            B. An Octopus, all blue and pulsing fair 
                 to leaping, writhes upon my knee in pain.

They scan right to me, but then I'm biased. I'll check them again tomorrow, once I've slept.

Chapter 1: Meter; Exercise 2

Exercise 1 was a meter marking exercise in the book itself (I'm not transcribing that here, sorry). Exercise 2: Write out at least 20 lines in iambic pentameter; some single, some double. Just letting it flow. Yikes.

I did five extra lines because it's been ages since I actually did this exercise and wanted to get my hand back in, so to speak.

1. Sometimes a thumb is really good for stuff.

2. I like cold beer, cold beer is tasty stuff.

3. Oh, Dog, can you excrete so much? I guess
that was a silly question. Yes, you can.

4. My desk is low, my thumb is sore, I am
a proper writer. Or, perhaps, am not.

5. The sky is grey, the wind is cold, I miss
your gentle touch. Where have you gone, my love?

6. Iambic rhythm is harder than I thought!

7. This show is dragging on, I wish it would
go off. I should go find the big remote.

8. Are books the best? Oh, yes, for sure, they are.

9. The telephone is ringing off the hook.

10. White crystals underground are pretty things.

11. The interruptions drive me up the wall!

12. I want to knit and dance and sing and play!
But what good money would that bring? Not much.

13. Inebriated monkeys play fun games.

14. Away from here I am a new woman.

15. I didn't count that line. Oh, me, oh my!

16. Now maybe I can get some work all done?

17. Computer science gives us all new toys.

18. I need another two line verse to feel
like I have made my best attempt at this.

19. Leaves fall, I've lost my will to live again.
I wait for spring to give me hope anew.

20. The heater drives me nuts with its great hum.

21. Blue fire erupts within my mind, all heat
and smoke and anger. How am I not burnt?

22. Oh, pardon crap attempts at poetry. Words
are quite forgiving, people should be, too.

23. I have a little bird, a parakeet.

24. When I have fear, I taste cold tin and teeth.
My tongue curls up, rebels against the pain.

25. My mind is fried, my eyes are heavy; sleep.

Introduction

This is the strangest introductory post I've ever written or tried to write. Typically, I'm not short of words when it comes to blogging--like most of my generation, I have a lamentable tendency to blather on and on about my own navel lint. However, this is the first of my (alas, many) blogs that actually is serving a purpose for me, other than digital repository of the ramblings of an empty mind.

I first got the book The Ode Less Travelled from my local library, oh, a couple of years ago. All I had to do was read the Foreword and I was hooked. I promptly took the book back to the library (early! I thought the clerk would have a heart attack) and hied me over to a big box bookstore and bought a copy. I knew it was something I wanted to own, to study at my leisure.

As the inestimable Mr. Fry states in his Foreword, I was never taught how to write poetry in school. We actually, in typical, half-assed, American-style educational fashion, didn't even have chapters on reading poetry. The closest we got was a section of Beowulf, which still ranks high on my list of favorite stories evar. But I'd never been in sniffing distance of Keats, Byron, or any other poet. Well, we did do Dante's Inferno, but in our translation it read more like Dr. Seuss than something as impressive as it was built up to be (although Dr. Seuss isn't half bad, for all that. No disparagement intended!) Final irony: my professor of the Dante class? A poet.

I want to learn about poetry. I wanted to learn how to write it, and write it properly. However, as you might have noticed, I've had this book for a couple of years. At least one of them I've spent as an unemployed person, trying whatever I can to keep busy while I wait for employers to start needing people again. What am I waiting for? Or, to phrase that properly, For what am I waiting? An engraved invitation?

So to build accountability into my practice (and set myself up for public humiliation at the same time), I'm creating this blog as a workbook of sorts. Some of the exercises in the book are done actually in the book (meter marking exercises, I'm looking at you), but others are written out. I have notebooks aplenty and pencils all over, but I want somewhere to keep a digital track of myself and occasionally do an exercise--as I spend a portion of each day on the internet, and maybe my notebook is in my purse in another room or something, it seems a wise precaution.

I warn you, this blog will be dull, badly written and probably highly laughable. So if you get off on the 'so bad, it's almost good' sort of thing, this one's for you!