New SoW, PoW and Inspiration Point

Congratulations to both. Nice Betjamin-esque poem from Luigi.

Cheers Gilbert. Much appreciated.

Hi Luigi - if its the same couple from different poem, did you google them? - lovely poem to read, easy voice to this tale and end line is sobering to say the least. Voodoun Romance - your story has stayed with me today - what a great Hansel and Gretel tale *shivers* - thanks both, enjoyed the reads.

Hi little. Clever of you to remember the other poem. Yes, it is the same couple but they were as fictional as my Google search. Glad you enjoyed the poem and thanks for the comment.

I enjoyed Hansel and Gretel very much. Fairy tales are all about archetypes, and identifying common fears. I think it's really good the way, in this story, you have provided a different archetype for the tale - the young out of control and out to destroy their elders - which seems to identify a very common fear at the moment. The poem was a delight to read, Luigi, but I personally didn't like the last line. It seemed a bit glib to me, and as I was reading the poem I had a feeling something like that would be coming. But it flows beautifully and is great read out loud.

I am sorry, Margharita, that the last line disappointed you but it wasn't meant to be glib. I had written an alternative 'happy' ending but on reflection I decided to portray a 'real' situation. I am also relieved that the composition wasn't a total let down and thank you for commenting on it.

No, the rest of it certainly wasn't a let down and I think I was disappointed with the last line because, imho, it wasn't as good as the rest. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that you can see where a piece is going, but for me the end then needs a kick of its own, and this one just didn't do it for me. But a 'happy ending' certainly wouldn't have done justice to the rest of it. Cheers. M

I think that I agree with Margharita. The last line actually - unfortunately - made me laugh. It's not that there's anything intrinsically funny about the content - quite the opposite, obviously - but that it seems so totally at odds with the jaunty rhyme scheme. But it's quite difficult to write anything with an xaxa rhyme scheme that doesn't feel at least a little bit jaunty.

I must say that you seem to have a weird sense of humour, rokkinite. But I don’t want to spoil your fun. Everybody is entitled to his opinion but I can‘t help wondering whether you haven‘t missed the point altogether. The jauntiness of which you talk is not due to the rhyming pattern. The light tone of the poem is deliberate and is meant to emphasize the demeanour of a woman who, knowing that she is at death’s door, puts on a brave face and does not reveal the gravity of her situation by joking and acting in a jovial manner - hence the smile and the wink -so that the interlocutor has no reason to believe that anything is amiss. The concluding stanza is a mere statement of fact: an obituary in the local newspaper brings home the sad reality. Hardly the stuff for a guffaw, I would have thought.

No, Rokkit, is right. And he's not saying that he thinks what's happened is funny. Rhyme - unless it's subtle - is a risky vehicle for non humourous storytelling in poetry. It's not impossible but it's very difficult to avoid what happens here. The content is almost irrelevant because the rhyming of rumour and tumour sounds funny. The reader laughs at the sound, not the fact that someone's dead. Having set up and continued with jaunty mood through the poem, the meaning of the word is not enough to completely reverse the mood at the end because the sound and rhythm are still taking the reader in the opposite direction. The incongruousness actually makes it sound funnier.

The reader laughs at the sound? I may be dense but I cannot see how the rhyming of rumour and tumour can cause hilarity. I have noted your views and as I said everybody is entitled to an opinion but quite honestly I don't want to enter into a prolonged argument.

i agree with what has been said about rhyme etc - but the subject is not funny - so a wince uncomfortable after for still smirking makes the endline work okay for me...

'The concluding stanza is a mere statement of fact: an obituary in the local newspaper brings home the sad reality. Hardly the stuff for a guffaw, I would have thought.' Well, except it's not 'a mere statement of fact' - it's in xaxa rhyme. If you'd written about it in prose or free verse, it might be less incongruous, but as things stand, the form and the content are at odds. Now granted, sometimes this discord can be employed to great effect, making the reader feel uncomfortable at experiencing opposed or inappropriate emotional reactions, but here I think it's just a rather unfortunate side effect of the rhyme scheme. You can't separate medium and message and insist that your readers attend to the latter whilst ignoring the former. Rhyme is funny - deny this at your peril! The result of doing so is something like Scottish poet William McGonagall's ostensibly tragic and austere 1890 piece, 'The Tay Bridge Disaster'. Ninety people died when the bridge collapsed - clearly not amusing - and yet McGonagall's strict adherence to his rhyme scheme renders the situation perfectly guffaw-worthy. Here's the final lines: Oh! ill-fated bridge of the Silv'ry Tay, I must now conclude my lay By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay, That your central girders would not have given way, At least many sensible men do say, Had they been supported on each side with buttresses.