Having forgotten where I parked my car
     Only an hour ago, and lost my way,
     I double back.  It can't be very far.

     I know that girl.  I met her in a bar
     Once, but I don't have time for her today,
     Having forgotten where I parked my car.

     Excuse me, sir, I don't know who you are,
     And no, I don't have any spare change.  May
     I double back?  It can't be very far.

     Although I really love my new Jaguar,
     I do so wish I owned that Chevrolet,
     Having forgotten where I parked my car.

     Some day I might attend a seminar
     About which laws a man need not obey.
     I double back.  It can't be very far.

     Of tedium this is the sixth instar,
     The sixth and last ecdysis of dismay.
     Having forgotten where I parked my car,
     I double back.  It can't be very far.

62 responses total.

This poem got me to re-live an all-too-familiar feeling.  Very good.

My car is in my driveway. I just checked.

Marvellous!  What else have you published in grex?

Thank you!  There are a few items in this conference that I wrote.
Glad you enjoyed this one. 

(56, 58, 59 & 61, for example.)

Can you state the rules for writing tercets and quatrains?  And which one was
this?  I ran across a copule of similar things in a poetry textbook once, one
recent, the other possibly 16 or 17th century.  If someone were to supply two
lines (hopefully ending in words that were easy to rhime, such as 'I don't
like biking in the rain, My hands get cold, my glasses fog), could you
improvise a few stanzas?  Is there a fixed number of stanzas?
Will go read your other contributions now.

The poem in #0 is called a villanelle, which the Princeton
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics describes as "a French
verse form, derived from an Italian folk song of the late
15th-early 17th centuries."  The form is described as
follows: "usually 5 tercets rhyming aba, followed by a 
quatrain rhyming abaa, with the first line of the initial
tercet serving as the last line of the second and fourth
tercets and the third line of the initial tercet serving
as the last line of the third and fifth tercets, these two
refrain-lines following each other to constitute the last
two lines of the closing quatrain."  Easier just to read a
few and figure it out for yourself, which I suspect is how
most of us villanellists have done it over the centuries. ;-)

Well-known villanelles of the 20th century include E.A. Robinson's
"The House of the Hill," W.H. Auden's "Time will say nothing
but I told you so," and Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into
that good night."  

To me, writing (extremely) formal verse is like doing crossword 
puzzles: relaxing, challenging and fun.  I'm not even a little
concerned with "expressing myself," obviously.  

    "I don't like biking in the rain.
    My hands get cold, my glasses fog."

Give me a day or two and I'll see what I can do.  Thanks again
for your kind words.

Thinking it over, my glasses do not actually fog, they streak.  I recall
biking back from Ypsi late one night without glasses.  Not too many words
rhyming with fog anyway (dog, log, bog, agog, hog?).  How about instead:  My
hands are cold, my saddle's wet  (or reverse the two halves).  (Webster
suggests sweat, yet, aigrette, beget, beset, coquette, curvet, duet, gazette,
rosette, minaret, parapet, rivulet, and regret, among others).
        I am looking forward to reading a custom-composed villanelle. (sp?)
        Can villanelles be translated between languages?  Have you ever
attempted the task?

Do you rhyme dog with fog? So far, we4've only found one other that does -
davel. 

Trying to come up with something in pentameter:  

'I don't like biking in the pouring (freezing?) rain,
My hands are numb, the saddle's soaking wet,
(can you find a third line, maybe ending in 'insane', sprain, abstain,
chilblain...)
        I may ask people in Transportation for ideas on content.

Hi Rane, or is it Rain?  Doesn't everyone rhyme dog with fog?  I asked my
Flint-born roommate, who also does.  I am from Boston, where merry, marry and
mary are all pronounced differerently (with the sounds of men, man and mane),
and hot has the same vowel as dog or god.  Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
rhymes dog and fog.

Michael, in Transportation Item #102 I have asked for ideas on problems
encountered when biking in the rain.  I anticipate that there will be
sufficient to fill at least five tercets and a quatrain.

You're right, the two lines you gave didn't leave much room.  The
rhymes on "fog" are particularly embarrassing.  But here it is, 
anyway, not so much "abandoned in despair" as gingerly dropped 
somewhere where no one will see it.  Did I mention, I charge $50/line?


I don't like biking in the rain.
My hands get cold, my glasses fog.
Why I do it I can't explain.

I think that I must be insane
To bike instead of walk or jog.
I don't like biking in the rain.

Brimming is every sewer drain;
Through lakes of boiling mud I slog.
Why I do it I can't explain.

All day I pedal and complain
Like some pajama'd taxi wog.
I don't like biking in the rain

And here's my turn, down Rustic Lane,
As sodden weeds my chain enclog.
Why I do it I can't explain.

And here's the house of Buxom Jane.
I rest my bike against a log.
I don't like biking in the rain.
Why I do it I can't explain.

[Btw, Robinson's villanelle is called "The House on the Hill,"
not "The House of the Hill" as I said in an earlier response.
The interesting thing about Robinson's poem is that it uses
lines with only three stresses.  A very terse, gaunt little poem.]

Almost everyone from around here, and most others I have asked, do not
rhyme dog with fog. We say "dawg", but "fahg". I have, however, found
both alternative prnounciations of dog in a dictionary. 

I say "dawg" and "fawg" but I'm not from around here.  But my wife,
who *is* from around here, says "dawg" and "fawg," too.  She says,
"I've heard 'fog' pronounced 'fahg' and I don't like it."  

I grew up in western Massachusetts, where "merry," "marry," and
"Mary" are three different words, as they apparently are in the
eastern part of the state.  I had elderly relatives who pronounced
"radio" and "radiator" with the first syllables rhyming with "bad."
So, I'm willing to believe that my pronunciation of "fog" is not
typical of S.E. Michigan.  I think it's close enough for an
extempore effusion upon biking in the rain, however.

Many thanks.  Have you biked in the rain yourself?  Regarding rhymes for fog,
have you looked yet at Cars Item 102?  There is mention of frogs.  Not to seem
ungrateful, but would you also care to try a version in iambic pentameter on
-rain and -wet?  If you wait a few days, there may be more ideas in #102. 
Would it help if I asked other bikers to submit their complaints in rhyme?
I was somehow expecting the last stanza to include a line ending in quatrain.

My Boston-bred father used to pronounce word pairs like tot/taught,
not/nought, with different length vowels:  o and o:

this item has been linked to the poetry conference from
writing item #83

neat.. :P

(zowwie -- I was about to say, "Wow, look at how the rhymes brought lurkers
out of the woodwork."  d=  You guys are *SO* dated; look at that, a poem from
'94.  d= d= d= )

bog, dog, fog, agog, hog, jog, cog, log, eggnog, sog, tog, polliwog, clog,
flog, frog, slog... 
*shrog*

could it also be linked to Cars (just after Item #102, or is there some way
to combine two items into one that is linked?).
Would any of you poets venture to write a villanelle?  How about something
on the subject of assembling a hammered-dulcimer kit, and we could link it
to the new do-it-yourself conference (for which I am supposed to be recruiting
new members).  Kit is easy to rhyme (misfit, quit, sit, split...).  So is tool
(fool, cool, spool...).  

A dulcimer issuch an easy kit
One that is made by such a fool
That is so very full of shit

*evil grin*
Real poets don't write commed pieces on how to make hammered dulcimers.
That's what John and Michael are here for. *wink*

I'm a dawg/fahg guy myself :)

believe it or not even the difference from se michigan to chicago il is huge
in some people's speechpatterns..
mostly though we all have flat accetns... i would say that i say fog as
f<a with umlaut>g as in father... not fawg or fagh... but i duno... i love
listening to accetnts... it is cool to tell the actors from texas that they
have accents... they can't hear it... but i can here their acents and my own
...
one day last quarter this girl said something about "TX forms for accounting
class" as if i knew what she was talking about... and it turned out that TX
was suppposed to be tax forms... :P she was from bloomfield hills... :)
<giggle> gotta love the michigan/detroitsupurb acccent.

Re #17, I've biked in the rain lots of times.  Only once did it get
so bad that I had to stop short of my destination and have someone
come pick me up.  

I'd've loved to do a pentameter version using "-ain" and "-et"
rhymes, but you had already given the two starting lines and I
felt bound to use them.  ("Real" poets used to do this sort of
thing all the time, btw -- not that that makes everyone who does
it a real poet.)

Alright.  The first person to define what a REAL POET is will the be the first
to egt a LOT of unhappy email from me. (er get)  Does everyone understand me?

<toking's got yo' back>

<tee-hee>

I used to love *motor* biking in the rain. I had a full vinyl suit, boots,
and my bike had a windscreen. I got to like doing this in England, where
narrow hilly roads meandering through charming countryside and villages,
and rain, are part of life there. 

Oh, erinn, I think Michael knew I was just yanking his chain.
I think.
I hope.
One of my favorite stories (of the ones that I wrote in high school) was
commissioned on the theme, "Write a story about New Year's Day." I wrote it
to prove that pieces of literature *could* be written under such constraints.
My English teacher had insisted they couldn't.

My pattern: Being contrariwise.

I want to make a box to play a song.
I have the wire and wood, the lathe and saw...
I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.

First thing to do is take a wood that's strong
And jig it out as angled as a jaw:
I want to make a box to play a song.

Sand down the wood, the way the grain is long,
Rubbing hard and firm, my fingers raw
(I only hope it doesn't come out wrong).

And next I thread the wires like a thong:
The cables strong, yet dainty, as if straw:
I want to make a box to play a song.

So now I need two mallets for a gong
And use them on my box -- there is no law --
I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.

So here I am, awaiting for the throng
(but hearing chirping bugs and crows that caw)...
I want to make a box to play a song,
I only hope it doesn't come out wrong.

There... I played nice... satisfied? =}

Very satisfied.  Would you two poets kindly also publish your villanelles in
the DIY conference (kits, I think item 3 or 4), and cars (I think it was
#102).  I am amazed at how fast you can churn out poems under such
constraints, or do the constraints help by giving you fewer esthetic choices?
It took me what seemed forever to translate some Macedonian verses that did
not even have to rhyme, just have the proper number of syllables and some
alliteration if possible.  Have any of you poets done verse translation?

Anyone want to try their hand at a villanelle (or other formal verse form)
on dowsing?  (See Agora #66).  Or shoveling snow (#67).  Or have you other
more important things to do, like crossword puzzles.  Or eating supper.

Re iambic pentameter.  Has anyone else seen (or even read) Gilbert and
Sullivan's Princess Ida, in the style of Shakespeare.  I am sure I missed most
of the allusions, but it was still wonderful.  What, by the way, is a triolet
(rhyming with violet).  It seems to have the rhyme pattern aaab, but I could
not understand the british accents well enough to get the next stanza.

May I see (here) The House on the Hill?  I have read the Dylan Thomas.

Does anyone know when rhyme, rather than alliteration, became the expected
thing for poetry in English?  Could it have been the Arabic influence as a
result of the Crusades?  Macedonian folk songs were still not rhyming in this
century, only the meter distinguished them as poetry.
Thanks again for the lovely villanelles.

Dark Ages, Master of the Palace School.  "Ver aspergit terram floribus."
Robert Frost has a poem about it somewhere.  I'll enter The House on
the Hill here soon.

Please explain that first sentence, which has no verb and does not appear to
relate causally to the preceding response.  Or is it the author of the second
sentence.  I cannot find my Latin dictionary.  Perhaps ver aspergit was the
first rhyming poem in English?  Or is a Latin villanelle?

Re #5: Relaxing, challenging, and fun as in crossword puzzles.  *yech*  and
I halfway like crossword puzzles.  Perhaps that is precisely why I don't like
extremely formal verse-- I am concerned with expressing myself.  Very
concerned.  If I do use formalities, it is for the sake of expression *grin*.

Also, I usually got lost in meter, rhyme, and other such nonsense that takes
me so much longer when I can craft something in relative freeverse in a
shorter time, and is my better work.

*so much for getting a compliment out of michael =P *
Thanks, Keesan.

I want to write an ode to shoveling snow,
An act that in these months so many do,
To clean the walks as wintry winds do blow.

I thought of cold, a feeling we all know,
But thought my poem would do with something new --
I want to write an ode to shoveling snow!

I see an image: balls of ice to throw
At those who leave the warmth --so true! --
To clean the walks as wintry winds do blow.

But this is a such a trite, poetic show,
A vision whose mundaneness leaves me blue:
I want to write an ode to shoveling snow.

I grasp for context, depth, so I can grow
Within, I'm overwhelmed with joy, not blue,
To clean the walks as wintry winds do blow.

Yet now I think: the poem's task is so:
To do the work not loved by me or you...
I want to write an ode to shoveling snow
To clean the walks as wintry winds do blow.

*heh*

To find a missing object, pray to God,
But if that doesn't work, I have this news:
Some items can be found with just a rod!

Let's say about your house, ah, you have trod,
To no avail -- first off, to get the clues
To find a missing object, pray to God.

A missing brooch? Your keys? No need to plod
Through piles of papers, laundry, mess and dues:
Some items can be found with just a rod!

that stream -- you left it here, beneath the sod,
or was it there? Oh no, and when you choose
To find a missing object, pray to God

That you will locate water... such a prod!
No, wave a stick across the grass -- no ruse --
Some items can be found with just a rod!

I know that you might think me such a fraud
To make such claims. What have you got to lose
to find a missing object? Pray to God
some items can be found with just a rod!

There. I'm sick of it. I'm done. That last one was actual *(work* (Maynard
G. Krebs voice) and, well, if it wanders into work, I'm done... =}

I don't go to those conferences, but you're welcome to clip and copy,
Keensa...

As to why I whip these off so fast, yes, it's the constraints. Free verse is
a lot harder for me.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss