Mountainbout - Jack Cade

but - what? - a cyclist! Love it. Calligraphic horns is amazing. They rein down like hammers is amazing. Tres visual.

what are Pantoum and Dunthorne forms? I swear poetry is a foreign language! jack - i think i like the poem, well i definetly love the rythmn - but if understood the above i may end up loving it. Juliet

Cheers, dudes. Juliet - a Dunthorne is any poem which ends with the unexpected death of a cyclist, usually blonde, sometimes eating olives. The original model is Spack's poem 'Olives', and the form originated because it took me and Tim so long to twig that the imagery at the end signified that the cyclist in the poem had been hit by a car. A Pantoum is a poem where the 2nd and 4th lines of each stanza are used as the 1st and 3rd lines of the next. The last stanza's 2nd and 4th lines are made of the 1st and 3rd lines of the first stanza, in reverse order.

I too was bowled over by calligraphic horns! I really enjoyed this. Juliet I share your sentiments about poetry being a foreign language. To me there are: - Rhymey ones, sort of rhymey ones, dull ones about fish, good ones, bad ones, incomprehensible ones and villanelles (the only form I understand) jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

ty for the explanation Jack - so a dunthorne is exclusive to ABC? And can it be applied to prose as long as a blond cyclist eating olives dies at the end? Explaining the pantoum - definetly makes me like the poem more - because i can see the structure you were working within. What worries me about poetry is, unless you have studied it or are writing it - then these forms have no meaning, which surely is a requirement if you are to really understand a poem. Does this not then alienate everyday readers, and therefore contribute to the lack of sales for poets? The same problem does not seem to apply in prose, which is consequently more accessible. Or is poetry meant to be elitist? I am not asking anyone in particular - just interested in others POV. Juliet

Is knowing the form a requirement to understanding a poem? I don't think so. 'In Flanders Fields' is a rondeau, but I imagine most people who come across this poem in war poet anthologies have no idea what a rondeau is. 'Do Not Go Gentle...' is a villanelle, but I recall it making sense to me before I knew what one was. In fact, I'd say that it was *more* striking before I realised that the repetitions are a necessary feature of the form. Also, I often try to replicate forms that I don't know the name of, or the rules of. I just see that a poem is assembled in a particular way, and try to replicate that pattern. There was one I spotted the other day where each stanza was 3 lines long, the first lines all rhymed, and the 2nd and 3rd lines of each one ended in the same word. I think the content of a poem is far more likely to alienate readers than the form.

thanks for that Jack - i think i get what you are saying if the poem is good (the content) then knowing the form doesn't matter, infact the form should be invisible, so like prose a good story is one where the writer is invisible. enjoyed the poem whatever it is! Juliet

One of my favourite features of this poem is actually the title. I very much enjoyed "But what - A cyclist?" or however that bit goes. I laughed out loud. The Pantoum works well here - very tight and unstrained. The Dunthorne seems to be a form that, once the reader's initiated and spots a pattern, becomes a very inclusive hug of a form that lets you see how niftily the writer's eased the cyclist's demise in. I agree it's funnier the less you're expecting it. "I have a room for life at the Home for the Chronically Groovy."