An Ode to the Christmas Crib

My attempt at reviving my poetry writing exercises for practice. A Pindaric Ode anyone?

A mother young, a mother poor

Rushing round with husband dear.

For contractions came too soon for home

The star - kissed night draws clear.

Poor husband's fraught and strained

And then at last, a crack of hope

A manger, straw, ox. Now we can cope.

Cash registers ring. The date draws near.

Shoppers pile up gifts for kith and kin dear.

The turkey roasted fat. The drinks foam.

All it seems is cheer. Trees glitter, children roam.

Excess rules the day. The side show becomes the main

Event. We all join in the refrain

Of winter wonderland while places we "chope"

In the Christmas show down Orchard Road.

Has the child been forgotten in the fear

Of being alone? And Silent Night turned rowdy cheer?

And why are there, in tropical heat, foam

flecked reindeer frozen outside a mall on a dome?

Even for those who choose to drain

Belief from their lives, still acclaim

Christmas. The hope that fights the nope

Of modernist thought. And for that magic they grope.

Note: "chope" means to reserve. Translated from the Singlish to English. Orchard Road is the glittering main shopping street in Singapore.

Poetry Exercies: Heroic Verse

Here I am, sleepy headed on late Sunday morning after having had wine and barbequed feast the night before. However, I'm determined to try and keep up some semblence of pace on this poetry writing.

So here is the next exercise Stephen Fry set. The instructions were to write in heroic verse ie iambic pentameter rhymed couplets. A contemporary monologue of a guy stoned off his head and trying to explain away a packet of cannabis found in his possession.

Trying to write this while being sleepy and tired gives me some sense of what it must be like to try and string logical thoughts together while in a semi-stupor.

To all you non-Singaporeans/Malaysians out there, this is written in Singlish: the bastardised version of English as she is spoke in my beloved country.

Explaining Away A Packet of Cannabis:
Aiyah! sir ah, this one how can mine one?
I *tole* you al-rea-ddy someone put it in for fun
Like joke like that - into my bag. I know
I know: you don't believe, ah, but it's so.
So suay. My friend, he run away. Lagi
Now worse for me. Aiyah, you search prop'ly
Neh mind neh mind. U don't believe? Is true
You say it's what? kah-na-bis? I no clue
This word I say also cannot. Ear-lier
When he give me, he say curry powder!


Needless to say i'm sure the cops didn't believe his story.

Suay: unlucky

Poetry Exercise: the Ballad

I do not like writing ballads. It's a bit like liking country and western music. Maybe I can like a tune or two and it is catchy to hum or sing along. But writing it is a different story. I find it really hard to be that exaggerated with my emotions or that sentimental. However in the name of doing Stephen Fry's exercise poetry exercise number 12, I did at least write a couple of stanzas so I can say I did it.

Now gather round and let me tell
The tale of Danny Wise
And how his sweet wife Annabelle
Did suck out both his eyes

And if I tell the story true
And if I tell it clear
There's not a mortal one of you
Won't shriek in mortal fear

Sweet Annabelle and Dany Wise
Did love each other so
But late one night he heard some cries
And ran to her too slow

By then the vampire bit her neck
And though he chased it far away
His wife was white and sick
Next moon, she turned. And well, the rest is history

Poetry Exercise: Spenserian Stanza

The last of the open forms: the Spenserian Stanza is a 9 line stanza of which the first 8 lines are iambic pentameter and the last line an alexandrine ie iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.

This form of verse the poet Spenser took.
Immortalised "The Faerie Queen" he did.
From then the form took life and shook
Our senses in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
"St Agnes Eve" - the cold crept in, it slid
By Keat's genius the fluttering owl's wing
Enshrined this form forever: iamb feet
Lord Tennyson, his "Lotos-Eaters" sing
Same tune and ends too with the alexandrine.

*Finally* I've completed Exercise 11 in Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". It's been a long stretch of just composing self-referential poems describing these open forms.

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!

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.

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.

Terza Rima - Poetry Exercise

The point of this exercise it to get familiar with terza rima which is a form of poetry where the rhyme scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, etc. It is an open form which means the poet can go on forever as opposed to closed forms where there are meant to be a fixed number of lines. It is stopped usually by adding an additional line to the last remaining stanza which so that the last stanza is abab instead. Or as Stephen Fry pointed out, Hopkins end stopped his by using a rhyming couplet instead.

The task was to write a self-referential terza rima explaining the form of the form.

Terza Rima:

I tried to write a rhyme once
Or twice, or thrice, but it was hard.
The rhythm slid away from this dunce.

Then I scribbled a terza rima shard
And it didn't seem too bad.
Not quite a poem yet - I'm not the Bard.

But aba, bcb, cdc, wasn't too hard
In fact I think I could go on and on
And on. Each interlocking rhyme is shared
Between the stanzas to lead me along.


This new poem written as an exercise comes after a haitus and is written in thanks too to another blogger who blogs on Taking5 who very kindly obtained a discounted copy of Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled for me. I had been using a copy from the National Library of Singapore and had already renewed it once. At the rate however that I was working through the book, it would have taken many more renewals and with each renewal at S$0.50, Taking5 had worked out it made more sense to buy a copy especially since she had a discount coupon. So I finally sat myself down in Dome in Dempsey today with an expresso and an orange carrot muffin to fuel me and worked this exercise out.

Many thanks to Taking5 for her encouragement.

Alliterative-Accentual Verse

I tend to write on a full stomach rather than empty so when I did this exercise, I was thinking more of drinks and snacks so my food tends to be less robust than what Stephen Fry came up with. However as the exercise is more about writing in the bang bang bang - crash! style ie alliterate three times and then change in a line, so it scarecly matters really what the subject matter is.

Here's my attempt and for those of you who don't yet know what alliteration is, you will by the end of the poem.

Things I Want or Don't Want to Eat or Drink Right Now:

Chocolate comes first or cocoa with froth,
A lemony drink or lime leached juice
Speedily hits the spot and sooths but then
Coffee doesn't. Caffeine kills my mind
But my body remains hyped: bouncing off the walls

I crave kana a lot, those clumps of fruit
Dried, salty, sour and sweet - I drool
Now that I'm done with drinks and desert, I desperately want
A Kaya toast: covered in coconut eggy jam
Thin crisp bits of bread, buttered and hot.

Or half-boiled eggs basting brown wholemeal toast
With soya sauce and pepper, spotting the yolk
Teh halia heaving with froth is heaven I think
So I'll stop soon enough to ready my mug
Yew tiao too is tea-dipping worthy

I wouldn't want wanton mee right now
Nasi lemak's not nice - too gelak
Oyster omelette oozes oil and lard
All these add on an extra pound or two
So to the gym I go and gallop on the treadmill.

Poetry Exercise: Iambic Pentameter

I've been inspired by my cousin's example and Stephen Fry's book, "The Ode Less Travelled". From the moment I read the first line of the Forward, " I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry." I was sold. I got myself a notebook and am now taking spare moments to put pen to paper and start practising the craft of poetry. It'll at the very least give me a greater attention to words and hopefully make me write more carefully even in everyday speech and writing. And it's also fun.

Here below are the results of the first exercise: a batch of iambic pentameter lines which are non-rhyming.

On an Aikido (Japanese Martial Art session):
I went and threw my uke so he fell
And hit the mat with an almighty bang

NB: an uke is one's partner and crash dummy in aikido as we practice in pairs co-operatively

On my cafe du chocolat from the Japanese bakery:
This choc-filled bun is wonderfully yum

On waiting by the phone:
I wait and wait: my mobile does not ring

On my new pair of dress trousers recently purchased from GG>5:
My trouser legs have seven buttons each
A show of leg and ankle they do line

On email missent:
In office land I stare at my computer screen
Aghast that I have sent an email wrong

On my dogs greeting visitors:
My dogs are runing up and down the stairs
Excited, barking: strangers they proclaim

On waiting for my prennially late friend:
I can't believe she's *always* late, and then
she goes and does it yet again. O hell.

On prayer:
I pray my prayers each morning, noon and night
Awaiting God, His Presence, Love and Grace

My prayer go forth, an arrow seeking light
From darkness bursting doubt and into faith

On work and frustration:
I try and try but nothing's going right
My boss's words of comfort scarcely heard