Ringing of the Bards June 16: Gallery of Forms

Welcome to the Gallery of Forms! Here you will find poems short and long, light and serious, rhyming and not-- but all united by their adherence to rules set down by someone else. In our days of supreme individualism, writing in poetic forms is an exercise in surrendering the self. Does that inhibit its true expression? We think not.

We'll start off with a couple of delicate haiku from Jone.
Terry's Soda Zip is a shadorma, which is also a syllabic form.
Speaking of food, Ozy has some thoughts about Bar-B-Q.

Form is something many of us struggle with, especially repetitive forms.
Deb has succumbed to Obsessive Scrutiny of the Villanelle
while Russell has been Sleepless over a pantoum.
I offer a sestina, Silence, Swallows, Bridge
and Deb cleverly reverses to a twisted sestina, for Blue Blanket.

After all that serious attentiveness, Mad Kane's GOP Piety Song comes as a relief! (She's only serious, you know.)

I'll close this section with three examples of that venerable and always fascinating form, the sonnet.
Rick leads off with American Mouse Cartoons. (One famous, one now nearly forgotten, alas.)
Rethabile sent me this piece: Moments
and finally, David Anthony's heartbreakingly beautiful The Water Bearer.

Go to the other gallery