Call me fruity, idiotic, insane, kooky, lunatic, mad, maniacal, mental, moonstruck, or nutty as fruitcake . . . still, I’m having fun (So far!) and learning a great deal. In addition, I’m unblocking some of the creative flow.
Not only am I taking the 30 Days, 30 Poems challenge at the Poetry Asides blog (Writer’s Digest), where the poem prompt for each day is given. I am also challenging myself to use 30 different poetic forms. Are there 30 forms? Not sure, I think so. (I know, I’m completely off my rocker!)
This will be difficult for a person who normally does not use rhyme in her stand-alone poems. (I do in my picture books.) Today I used an Ottava Rima. This is an Italian form that is 8 lines long, usually iambic pentameter (5 iambs—a soft & a hard beat—and thus 10 syllables long). It has a rhyming scheme of abababcc. Wow!
Yesterday’s poem was a Fibonacci poem. That was fun, though relatively easy compared to today’s.
You can read my poems here or click on the “Poet’s Corner” logo in the right-hand sidebar.
How are you challenging yourself?
Happy Poetry Month!
Shutta
Shutta Crum writes books for children and poetry for adults. She is also a storyteller, a lecturer and a librarian. In addition to her current eleven books she has three forthcoming books. Several of her articles about teaching and writing have appeared in professional journals. In 2005, she was honored by being one of eight authors invited to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. In 2010 she was invited to tour Department of Defense American military base schools across Japan.