Poetry Exercise: Ottava Rima

Here's the next self-referential open form poem. One of the poetry exercises set by Stephen Fry.

The ottava rima as its name suggests
Was borrowed from Italian epic form
Too use in jest as with Lord Byron's epics
Best: Don Juan - the romantic satire long.
Later though, its mocking roots it left
And so his "Among School Children" was born
WB Yeats' philosophical anguish at ending years
End in perfect square of words that sear.

The rhyme scheme is abababcc. For those of you who saw the earlier draft, please erase the thought. I made horrendous mistakes in that rhyme scheme. As you can see I'm getting a bit too careless!

Bishan Dog Run Outing

Lookeee the doggeee in the yellooww booties!

I finally made it to the Bishan dog run with my dogs in tow last Vesak Day. I say "finally" because the last two times I tried, the carpark was chocablock and I wasn't able to get a parking lot despite waiting around a bit. Had the usual good chats with fellow dog lovers, met a gorgeous, gentle German Shephard, rescued at the 11th hour from being put down at the SPCA by his new adoptee owners. Also saw the cutsy dog above just as I was leaving and couldn't resist taking a snap.

And as always this sense of peace from being amidst the greenery slowly seeped in as I ran with my dogs and hung around in the dog run. Life always seems a lot easier to face after being out in this park, more settled, more in perspective. It's like recharging the soul.

The Best Little Japanese Restaurant

Warning it's expensive enough that I'd only recommend it on a corporate expense account...having said that, it's superb and if you like Japanese food, go!

Shiraishi is a tiny restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton, Singapore, with barely enough seating space at the tables for 10 people and a little counter that sits maybe another 10. So even though we went late, it was still crowded. The service was good and they had held our table though we were slightly late and had shifted us from the counter to the table at our request.

The crockery is lovely and so is the menu. With typical Japanese attention to detail, each piece of porcelain/pottery was designed to match the food served. I especially liked the watercolour paintings on the menu which was made from handmade Japanese paper so has this rough textured finish to it.

What we had: a sampling of sashimi then we ordered a couple more dishes such as sea urchin, salt baked fish head, summer vegetables and desert. All were exquisitely laid out and tasted very fine.

My favourites though were the seasonal vegetables and the sea urchin. The vegetables each came a little carved and artistically arranged into a medly of colours and tastes. The sea urchin was so fresh and soft and full of flavour I think it beat even the one I had in Japan many years ago at a very expensive Japanese corporate dinner. The salt baked fish head turned out to be the cheek rather than the whole head.

What I was also very impressed by was that all the wasabi and other condiments were obviously made from scratch. The sushi leaves were imported from Japan and tasted amazing. I could have just gone there for the freshly grated wasabi alone.

We didn't eat a lot and our bill ended up at over S$200. She'd decided since we were both so very full still from our buffet dinner the night before (me) and her indian lunch (her) we could only take nibbles for dinner. Hence a good time to try out an expensive sushi restaurant. Overall, I'd say despite the price, if you treasure good sushi, this is the place to go to, after saving up of course and not going ravenous.

Poetry Exercise: Rhyme Royal

This classic English poem from old
Has iamb feet in pentameter lines
From Chaucer's time till present day it's mould
Not changed. But now its language modern is fine.
To not update it would be a shame, a crime.
With refurbished words, a new lease of life is given
The form can live again in modern times.

Aikido Bag

My aikido sensei gave me a bag! I was quite taken by surprise and it was actually very nice of him to do so. I think it's meant to be a sign of appreciation for helping out here and there with classes ie showing up regularly, helping with mats, adminstrative work on Fridays etc. Still, I don't really do that much actual work so it's kinda nice of him to do that.

Poetry Exercise: Rubai

The exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled has me writing several self referential forms. This one covers the Rubai which is an open form (ie can go on ad infinitum).

The Rubai:

This form was used in Persia long ago.
Omar Khayyam's moving finger writ it so.
His jug of wine to fuel his thoughts
And loaf of bread to help his poetry flow.

It's only rule is to rhyme lines one, two and four
In four line stanzas, no more.
Ignore line three: its rhyme matters not.
And there you go: a rubai from from yore.

Poetry Exercise: The Quatrain

At long last, I got down to writing again. To those of you about to chide me for my tardiness, I will say in my defence I did write an earlier one but as it was upon my lunchtime in the office and I had wanted to consult Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, I had left two lines left unwritten. And then promptly lost the poem between the office and home.

So anyway, to cut a long story short, here's the quatrain, freshly written in my living room and I'm rapidly committing it to blogger before my laptop finally carries out its recent threats to die entirely.

The exercise was to write a self-referential poem describing the essential structure of a quatrain.

The Quatrain

The quatrain is what is all to us
A poem quintessential true.
Or so we think: it's just no fuss.
Can be strong, can be fun or blue.

The mood may vary, but same stays
The rhyme: abab, cdcd
Efef and so it goes
All emotion fits four lines, this story.