First Flowers - a Poetry Friday post
Today, I'm sharing a raccontino, which is a new form for me to work in. Heck, for all I know, it's a newer form in general. All I know is that this is what the Poetry Princesses opted to write for this month, so I opted in and wrote mine.
What, you may ask, is a raccontino? It's a form written in couplets, to start with. The first lines need not rhyme with anything, but all the "B" lines rhyme, so it's roughly XBXBXBXB. Only there's no set length, so it could be as few as four lines, and as long as you want to make it. About the first lines in the couplets: the end words should work together to tell a story of their own, especially when read with the title.
I wrote mine by figuring out a topic, then picking the end words for the odd-numbered lines, then writing toward them, with an eye toward finishing my first couplet using a word with lots of rhyme potential. Other people went about it a bit differently (eyes Sara Lewis Holmes). This form was brought to our attention by Tricia Stohr-Hunt, who ganked it from Helen Frost. You can read Tricia's excellent post on raccontinos at her blog, The Miss Rumpus Effect.
Without further ado, here's mine:
First Flowers
by Kelly Ramsdell Fineman
Despite chill temperatures, crocuses spring
from the ground, demanding we look
beyond ourselves, so that our steps
don’t crush saffron centers. By the brook,
their colors - purple, yellow, white - all out,
so much finery from an Easter book.
Here are the links to the raccontinos written by my lovely poetry sisters:
Sara Lewis Holmes at Read Write Believe.
Tanita Davis at Fiction, Instead of Lies.
Andi Jazmon at A Wrung Sponge.
Laura Purdie Salas at her website, who wrote hers while in Ireland.
Liz Garton Scanlon at Liz in Ink.
Tricia Stor-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect, who got us started with this form.
I hope you'll check out all six of the other poems, and if you want still more poetry, click the box below for the Poetry Friday roundup.
What, you may ask, is a raccontino? It's a form written in couplets, to start with. The first lines need not rhyme with anything, but all the "B" lines rhyme, so it's roughly XBXBXBXB. Only there's no set length, so it could be as few as four lines, and as long as you want to make it. About the first lines in the couplets: the end words should work together to tell a story of their own, especially when read with the title.
I wrote mine by figuring out a topic, then picking the end words for the odd-numbered lines, then writing toward them, with an eye toward finishing my first couplet using a word with lots of rhyme potential. Other people went about it a bit differently (eyes Sara Lewis Holmes). This form was brought to our attention by Tricia Stohr-Hunt, who ganked it from Helen Frost. You can read Tricia's excellent post on raccontinos at her blog, The Miss Rumpus Effect.
Without further ado, here's mine:
First Flowers
by Kelly Ramsdell Fineman
Despite chill temperatures, crocuses spring
from the ground, demanding we look
beyond ourselves, so that our steps
don’t crush saffron centers. By the brook,
their colors - purple, yellow, white - all out,
so much finery from an Easter book.
Here are the links to the raccontinos written by my lovely poetry sisters:
Sara Lewis Holmes at Read Write Believe.
Tanita Davis at Fiction, Instead of Lies.
Andi Jazmon at A Wrung Sponge.
Laura Purdie Salas at her website, who wrote hers while in Ireland.
Liz Garton Scanlon at Liz in Ink.
Tricia Stor-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect, who got us started with this form.
I hope you'll check out all six of the other poems, and if you want still more poetry, click the box below for the Poetry Friday roundup.