Memes, Writing

Verses Wheelbarrow into Whitney

As all those superbly talented poets over at dVerse poets pen poems seemingly effortlessly, and words flow smoothly out of their pens (well, on their keyboards or such), I scrambled to find something to build my poem on. And discovered two new poetry forms. Here is my attempt at each of them. Both begin with the letter W in an attempt to join in at ABC Wednesday‘s letter of the week, and use the word ‘groove’ which is the theme over at dVerse this Poetics Tuesday.

The first one is called the wheelbarrow. From PoetryMagnumOpus – ‘The wheelbarrow is an invented form sometimes used by educators as an exercise in focus, intensity, concentration and emphasis. Donald Hall’s How to Read a Poem ends the first chapter with this exercise. The verse form is patterned after the structure of the red wheelbarrow by William Carlos WilliamsHall calls it “the wheelbarrow”.’

It is essentially a single sentence, which is written in 8 lines, broken into 4 stanzas where each stanza has 2 lines. The first line of each stanza had 3 words with 3 or 4 syllables in total, while the second line is a single word of 2 syllables.  The use of concrete images and emphasis on certain words grabs the attention of the reader. You can read more about it here.

Bright Pink Zumba

what matters is

dancing

 

to that beat so

groovy

 

with bright pink

zumba

 

shoes on smooth

dance-floors

-Vidya Tiru/LadyInRead

 

The second one is called the Whitney. This titled syllabic form has exactly seven lines with the syllable pattern -3/4/3/4/3/4/7. It is an invented form created by Betty Ann Whitney.

You Make Me Smile, Do I?

What set those

lines that etch your

 

face? Not me,

I hope. What may

 

help you smile

those grooves away?

 

That is me, I truly hope.

-Vidya Tiru/LadyInRead

18 thoughts on “Verses Wheelbarrow into Whitney

  1. Had never heard of these forms so thank you for introducing them to me! 🙂
    I LOVE the idea of helping you smile the grooves away! 🙂 I’ve been surprised that no one has mentioned the lines etched into our faces with age, worry, etc as grooves. It was one way of using “groove” that I contemplated while listening to music….and then went the musical way instead. But oh YES — we all need someone who helps to take away the frown grooves….make us happy, make us serene. Laugh lines are not so deep I think as the furrowed (grooved) brow and the frown grooves. May all our grooves be happy ones! Thanks so much for posting today 🙂 Really enjoyed both of these!

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