Day Eleven

Welcome back, all, for the second Saturday of NaPoWriMo!

Today’s featured participant is Brittany’s Blog of Random Things, where the abecedarian poem for Day Ten has visual elements. Swoop it goes!

You’ve heard that clothes make the man? Well, it may be that they make the poet, too — our featured resources for the day seem to think so, at any rate! Here’s a bit of sartorial Saturday silliness, in the form of a tumblr dedicated to poets and shoes. To round things out, here’s a project dedicated to poets and their jeans. Maybe you’ll be inspired to write an ode to denim yourself?

Our (optional) prompt for today departs from such concerns, however. Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.

It may be easier to hear the meter than to think about it – try reading this poem in Sapphics aloud to yourself, and you’ll see what an oracular tone it produces – the stressed beginnings of the lines produce a feeling of importance, while the unstressed syllables of the trochees keep the pace measured. Rhyming is optional, and if you begin to bridle at the strict meter, feel free to loosen it up!

Happy writing!