Poem #16 for Poetry Month-Senarius Metre, Greek & Latin tradition

Today, I’ve dipped back into the Classical Greek and Latin chapter of The Shapes of Our Singing for a twelve syllable line, the Senarius Metre, with a -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/ stress pattern. There is latitude for my bleary morning mind though. The – symbol can be used for a light stress OR a long stressed syllable while the / symbol, as always, means a strong stress. 

Compared to the many complex rhythmic possibilities offered by the ancient Greek and Latin forms, this one appears to offer an easy way in for my two draft effort. I do not consider myself, first and foremost, a poet but a storyteller in prose form so these daily excursions to the Land of Poetry in an hour or two, at most, have me raiding my poetry cupboard aka computer file or coming up with the equivalent of a limerick vs a Persian ghazal. Free verse vs a Shakespearean sonnet. 

But I enjoy working and playing with established forms and I especially enjoy reading poetry, like the haiku of Joanna Streetly in This Dark from Postelsia Press, Tofino: 2014 or the ghazals and anti-ghazals by Phyllis Webb, one of Canada's most perceptive, skilled and wise poets, ever. Read Wilson's Bowl. Read everything she has ever written, in fact.

 

The Shapes of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres From Around the World

By Robin Skelton

Published by Eastern Washington University Press, Spokane, WA: 2002

Building Forty Years of  Fertile Ground 

The rains have stopped for now, I pray, there is so much

To do today and my back aches but what is that

Compared to a row of raspberries whose shallow

Roots are choked with grass and of course my nemesis

Creeping buttercup, oh! That clammy fiend puts me

In mind of some in human form who haunt my patch

Of fertile ground, demand to know the whereabouts

Of nutrients, trade secrets, as if my long years

Of toil, my compost bins, my woesome lack of cash

Was somehow a subterfuge, a quick magic trick

To produce five genres of juicy berries each

One a summer poem fresh from my tart-sweet tongue