Sunday, April 27, 2014

A Teaching Ballade from Mindful Poetry

Today's prompt at Poetic Asides on Writers' Digest is "write a poem about a monster."  I'm thinking of using the ballade form for this one. Here's my Mindful Poetry column post from last year about this form.

A Teaching Ballade

The ballade for Mindful Poetry
Appears to be our form for June
As you write and tap each key
The rhyming scheme will shape a tune
A regular meter’s not picayune
Keep the time the guidelines state
Your success induces me to swoon
May your ballade illuminate!

Three stanzas and an envoy, see?
If you write less, you’ll end too soon
Pattern your rhymes of A, B, and C
Line eight repeats like a blue moon
In this French form that surfs the dune
Use
rhymezone to navigate
Above reproach, you’ll be immune
May your ballade illuminate!

Sometimes I’m slow, but guarantee
To your ballade, I’ll be attune
I’ll leave a note, some repartee
To be sure, I’ll not impugn
A few more points I must harpoon
So keep your course, do not conflate
Repeated rhymes a big boo-boo!
May your ballade illuminate!

The envoy works like a cocoon
Four lines written instead of eight
To draw attention like a loon
May your ballade illuminate!

1 comment:

CharliMills said...

Illuminating! Clever to use the ballade as a teaching tool.