Farmlet Idyll

There is something very pleasant,
In the country greeting you.
When you wake up in the morning,
And the ground is wet with dew.

The birds are early risers,
The morning chorus new,
As the dawn is gently breaking,
Waking me and you.

The idyll Homer wrote of,
Of  Ithaca renewed,
A home to Odysseus,
Amidst Cerulean blue.

The farmlets always with us,
As we spend a year or two,
Enjoying a rich bounty,
Until our lives are through.

A great example of bad rhymed poetry. I'm not sure where that came from.

DK

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An F word Poem

Frustrated today
Flourishing Tomorrow
Foolish sometimes
Fretful often
Forgetful occasionally
Fending for myself
Fishing for compliments
Flatout thinking
Finished


Not what you though?

DK

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Experimental Poetry

When I was young I hated poetry. The cloying, restricted rhyme patterns and the assinine topics did nothing for me. When I was introduced to free verse I began to change my mind. Now I enjoy reading and writing Experimental Poetry which allows for far more expression and indeed exploration. The ModPo poetry course from UPenn on http://www.coursera.org has opened me up to new techniques and new ways of looking at poetry, hence some of my recent posts and poems. The 10 week course has now ended but the learnings will be with me for life. I plan to try more experimental forms on this blog. 

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God Defend New Zealand - a Sound Poem

Sound poems concentrate on the sound of words and the meter instead of on meaning. A well known technique is to take a well known piece of poetry or declaration and change the words to a similar sound.

Here is an attempt on Verse 1 of New Zealands National Anthem - God of Nations

Original

God of Nations at Thy feet,

In the bonds of love we meet,

Hear our voices, we entreat,

God defend our free land.

Guard Pacific's triple star

From the shafts of strife and war,

Make her praises heard afar,

God defend New Zealand.

Sound poem 

Cod of nay shuns hat thigh feat
Inn the ponds of dove wee meat
Hair hour choices we in treat
Cod deaf end ow three hand

Original in Maori

E Ihowā Atua,

O ngā iwi mātou rā

Āta whakarangona;

Me aroha noa

Kia hua ko te pai;

Kia tau tō atawhai;

Manaakitia mai

Aotearoa

Sound Poem

He e hoer are two are
Nah he we Matthew roar
Carter what a Rangoon eh
Mare arrow Hanover

You get the idea. When these sound poems are read they mimic the sound but not the meaning of the original.
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A Flarfing Flarf Poem

Flarf poetry started by a group of poets trying to write the worst poem possible to see if it would be accepted by poetry.com, a vanity publisher. Their increasingly wild attempts were all accepted and more people joined the fun.

Flaring can be done by using a Google search with some unrelated terms and then using the results to write a poem from what comes up.

In this flarf poem I have used the terms John Ashbery, elk and blue whale and the resultant poem is as follows:

Full of dark blue jays
Includes Crone rhapsody
Consommé root
John Fante
Ask the dusk?

The Squid and the Whale
Green industrial waste bins
Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery
Kenneth Koch
Blue whale multitudes
To coral gulfs.


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The Charity Walk

Out of bed at 8am
Pouring with rain
The 12K charity walk
Today.

Milling with the peacock
Hue of color waiting.
And now the race begins...

Surrounded, thronged by
Thousands it takes a while
To hit the stride

1K comes quicker than thought
Relaxed with 11 more to go
What's the fuss about?

2K takes a bit more effort
But the crowd has thinned
The pace settled .

At 3K half of half is reached
If only 6K it would be half
Way home.

4K and the stragglers straggle
Whilst the leaders
Have led and are gone.

5K comes and goes
The upward slope
Concentrates thought.

The path divides
6Kers to the left
12Kers straight ahead.

The numbers drop considerably
And a new lease of life is
Reached at 6K.

Where is everybody?
Just 2 ahead and 2 behind
Seen.

7K is here with 5 to go
The upward slope
Takes it's toll.

At 8K time for a photoshoot
Relaxed and band music
Serenading.

9K comes and goes
The downhill homeward
Stretch ahead.

10K Thank God not far now
Legs turning to jelly
Aching glutei maximi

11K
Gasp
Gasp

12K home, but they're
rolling up the finish line
Just make it over
Before everyone goes home!!








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Juxtaposition - a found poem

Gazing upon Gold
I will be the leader
or a Shearer
Disppearance would
be too hard to bear

Mad cow link
in hunters death
Settlement failure costs $3M
Shearer leadership
suffers defeat--

Way to Go David
Don't Labour too hard

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A Found Poem from Stuff

The Greatest
Homicide Land Search
Overstayer used Uncles ID
Hang Glider crashes in Canterbury
No confirmation on NZ data
Train collides with crowd in US.

This is a compilation of headlines in the Stuff online publication for 16 November 2012.

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Mesostics a discovery

You have all heard of an acrostic, but do you know what a mesostic is? A mesostic builds around a spine with the spine of the mesostic running down the middle of the poem rather than the front. The spine and the text chosen to find the mesostic do not need to be related but it is often good if they do.

To construct a mesostic identify your spine word or words

Find a source text

Use the first word in your text that has the spine letter in any position other than the first or ultimate letter.

If you want to you can use wings where more than one word is used to encapsulate the spine

An example is shown below using MBSPOET as the spine and one of my poems "Saturday Morning" as the text.

The original poem is:

In bed

With iPad
Looking through
Poetry
And
Vocabulary
Just for you.

What is it
About poetry
That captivates me?
The power of
Words to mesmerise

The mesostic looks like this

Captivates Me
             In Bed
    MesmeriSe in
                iPad
           LoOking through
           PoEtry
          capTivates

The mesostic changes the meaning but reveals a truth that I am mesmerised by my iPad and poetry.

Ciao
DK

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