text ❁ plant a garden for edgar allan; grow a poetry

[roseblooms]

Kit Fawkes shared a photo. 7/4 near Peach Beach

I think that there is no one in this town Who'd say that they demurred or disagreed That all our lives got flipped, turned upside-down By, quote, "the last app we will ever need". We'd not installed the app; it simply came We didn't ask for this; we didn't plan it Yet it was how we first beheld the name Of perfect, flawless, fair, unrivaled Janet Oh, Janet, with your wisdom, take us far And thrill us with your social mastery ('Cause let's be real here, Retrospec's HR Seems way more competent than R&D) Although, for bingo, poorly does this bode - For I just wrote a sonnet, not an ode.

Comments

[sotenbori]

what the fuck this is so good

[frisyr]

Wait a sonnet isn't an ode?

WHAT'S AN ODE?

(This was really good by the way sorry if it doesn't complete your bingo!)

[crushcard]

I'll give you an A for effort.

[roseblooms]

What can I say? I enjoyed my English Lit class in undergrad.

[roseblooms]

If we're being nitpicky, an ode technically has a different meter and rhyme scheme than a sonnet does.

The sonnet I wrote is fourteen lines and follows a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG; an ode, for example, might be ten lines in ABAB CDE CDE.

[roseblooms]

I was more going for a B for Bingo, but I'll take it.

[crushcard]

... You're much more literate than I am.

Any progress in this game?

[frisyr]

ABAB CDE CDE what??

This is so complicated! What's the meter? I definitely don't think I've ever written an ode before!

[roseblooms]

Like I was telling Majima, I had a good time in English Lit.

Not really. But I'm also not inclined to take it too seriously, regardless of whatever rewards they might promise us.

[crushcard]

Professor Izunia says I'm way too competitive for my own good, which is the only reason why I'm doing this damn thing.

Okay, maybe the possibility of getting back some memories that aren't bullshit would also be helpful.

[thesettingsun]

An ode it's not - still
Broadly speaking, this poem
Fulfills your bingo.
If Jim knows the difference
And is picky, he's an ass.

[roseblooms]

It's a way of — hold on, I'll start at the beginning.

Look at the first verse. "Town" rhymes with "down", and "disagreed" rhymes with "need". Right? So the way of noting that in shorthand is that it's a rhyme scheme of ABAB — A rhymes with A, B rhymes with B. Do you follow me so far?

[frisyr]

Yeah, I think. So that's the rhyme scheme... and what's the meter?

[roseblooms]

Nitpicking a poem:
Fragile petals on the breeze.
Critics go to hell.

[thesettingsun]

Season words are hard
Even if the meter's not.
Prose is my strong suit.

[roseblooms]

The meter to poetry what a beat is to music — the natural emphases in how you pronounce words that give each line its rhythm.

i THINK that I shall NE-ver SEE
a POEM as LOVE-ly AS a TREE

Each line has eight syllables, and the "beat" of emphasis falls on syllables two, four, six, and eight. In poetry, that would be called "iambic tetrameter", which really is a very fancy way of saying "the rhythm in the syllables goes 'unstressed-STRESSED' four times per line".

[roseblooms]

Professor Izunia has a lot to say about a lot of things, doesn't he.

He's encouraging you to participate?

[roseblooms]

Rigid form demands
Arbitrary nature words.
Just write what you want.

[crushcard]

... Yes.

To be fair, he seems to like encouraging people to do things. Whether or not this will end up ebing a bad decision that will haunt me later is a little bit too early to say right now.

[frisyr]

Wow, there's a lot that goes into poetry

Are you going to rewrite your sonnet? It's a really nice sonnet

[roseblooms]

...That seems like a fair assessment of his tendencies, yes.

Well, you know, even bad decisions are things that people can ultimately work through, in the end.

[roseblooms]

No, I think I'll likely leave it as-is. Even if I don't get credit for it being an ode TECHNICALLY — which is hair-splitting in the extreme at best — it's still a finished work and there's no sense in tampering with it.

[thesettingsun]

If writing tanka ends up such a test
I'll switch verse forms, at your behest.
I'd go to such lengths
To play to my strengths,
For Jim can't see me at less than my best.

[roseblooms]

Don't be like the man from Nantucket
Who can't carry beat in a bucket —
If a limerick suits
Accept no substitutes.
Write your best, not what makes you say "darn it".

[crushcard]

Yeah, but I would have wasted a lot of time. I'd probably appreciate this game more, but July is a terrible month. Too many things happening at once.