Day Twenty-Eight

We’re in the home stretch now, with just three days left to go in this year’s Na/GloPoWriMo!

Today’s featured participant is MellowYellow, which brings us a driving, musical poem in response to Day 27’s American sonnet prompt.

Our featured resource for the day is Harriet Books, the Poetry Foundation’s online website devoted to poetry book reviews, poetry news, and poetry-themed blog poets.

Finally, our optional prompt for the day asks you to try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

Happy writing!