Heroic Couplets, Memorizing Chaucer, Robert Frost, and California Redwoods

Heroic couplets have been around a long time.  What is a heroic couplet? It's two successive rhymes of iambic pentameter with an aa, bb, cc, dd, etc rhyme scheme. 

The first person to really use the heroic couplet was Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales.  As a undergraduate English major, I had to learn the first 18 lines of the Prologue of the Tales, reciting it from memory in Middle English.  It goes something like this:

Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.
1	Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
2	The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
3	And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
4	Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5	Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
6	Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7	The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8	Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
9	And smale foweles maken melodye,
10	That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
11	So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-

And so on it goes.  Most English majors say once they learn this; they remember it the rest of their lives. 

Me: I couldn't do it again with a gun to my head.  I was good for one go round, and that was it.

Anyway, as time went on, poets continue to use this format, especially in the 1500s and 1600s.  Poets such as Thomas Wyatt, John Donne, and others, made the heroic couplet famous.

In modern times, it was used by such poets as my absolutely all time favorite poet, Robert Frost.  A native New Englander like myself (he was from New Hampshire, me from Connecticut,) Frost used the couplet to compose such poems as the one below:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

(1923)

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her earl leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour

Then leaf subsides to leaf

So Eden's sank to grief

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

I remember reading Robert Frost for the first time when I was in high school  My aunt (the one from Connecticut) had gotten my brother and I a subscription to National Geographic, which nobody really read much.  But in the April, 1976 issue, it had these gorgeous pictures of New England, with this amazing poetry.  It was truly love at first read.  And even now, after all the poetry I've studied and read, Frost is still my favorite. When I read it, I feel a sense of belonging.  Maybe ancestrial longings? On my maternal grandfather's side of the family, they go all the back to William Bradford and Plimouth Plantation (and yes, that spelling is correct!!) But I do love his poetry; always will. 

Robert Frost

Anyway, as you can see, Robert Frost knew his way around a couplet. 

Now for my heroic couplet poem, I took a poem, once again from my old chapbook,  called "To A California Redwood." The poem was too long, and overly wordy.  So I had a "do over" with it.

Anyone who has been to Sequoia or Yosemite National Park in California, can tell you how awesome these redwood trees are.  There is really nothing like them anywhere.  They are hundreds of years old, and huge.  They are truly one of nature's most amazing contributions to the world.  When you look up at them, they look as though they descend into heaven, that they touch the sky, the ends of the earth.   

To A California Redwood

Placid giants; umbrellas graced with green,
Above the earth you dwell with grace; only to heavens seen,
Mankind stands so small below, as you reach to the sky,
Wishing for longevity, and time he cannot buy.
A creature of the ages, witness of the years,
Your wisdom fills the wooded glen, a perfection that adheres,
A mighty bark withstanding all that nature does employ
May you reign over the forest for generations to enjoy.

I'm really enjoying writing all this rhyming poetry; hope to do more soon!!!

Don't look now, but I think I wrote a sonnet.

I've always wanted to write a sonnet.  When people think of sonnets, they often think of the most famous sonnet writer of all time, Mr. William Shakespeare.  But many modern poets used the sonnet as well.

The sonnet is a 14 line poem, written in iambic pentameter.  It's rhyming scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.  Sounds easy enough, right?  NOT!

My favorite sonnet writer is Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Millay's poetry became famous in the 1920s, and she, like many women in her era, were not shy about the fact they had a multitude of lovers.  After all, it was the era of flappers, and bathtub gin, and the charleston.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Those of us that grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, during the post-sexual revolution of the 1960s can relate to this on varying levels. (I personally admit to nothing!) But I do admit my all-time favorite sonnet is Millay's Sonnet XLIII, that goes like this:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, 
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain 
Under my head till morning; but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain 
For unremembered lads that not again 
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. 
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree, 
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, 
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: 
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, 
I only know that summer sang in me 
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Now, here's my attempt:

Sonnet I
To those I've loved

To those I've loved in days gone by
That linger in sequestered places
In a restless heart, that wonders why
And thinks on smiles of fading faces.
Their laughter rings through bygone days
In moments I remember
When love was young and passion blazed
Then burst to deadened embers.
When days are long, and I'm alone
and youth seems far away
I think of when those love lights shone
Full of sweet words to say.
         I dwell on all those moments sweet,
         And hope again with love I'll meet.

Okay, well, maybe Edna was better.  But it was my first try!!!

California's greatest ghost town: Bodie



Ina Coolbrith in the 1860s.

This poem is my one claim to fame as a poet; it was the Ina Coolbrith Circle award winner in 1997.  Sound pretty obscure, I guess.  Ina Coolbrith was a California poet who kept company with writers like Bret Harte and Mark Twain when they were writing in 1860's San Francisco. In her later years, Coolbrith was a mentor to Jack London and other writers from her desk at the Oakland Library.

People don't know much about Twain's work in this era, but I think it is some of his best. They all were real Victorian hippies.  It guess that's an oxymoron, but in truth, it does work.  They were rule breakers; innovators of their time. 

Here's my award winning poem; I've given it a bit of a facelift from the original. 

Echoes in Bodie

You can hear them
when cruel Sierra winds dance
through deadly silence,
the lifeblood of a time gone by.
Adventurers stomping
through winter brutality,
as wagons and coaches
rattle the souls of those arriving,
more coming
everyday.

Laughter resonated
on sagebrush laden streets,

as unblemished, glittering silver

flowed like saloon whisky

into pockets of once poor men.

Their callused palms grasping tight

to their fortunes,

as gunfights emerged

in fits of greed

turning virgin snowfall

brilliant red

Now,

affluent splendor

is but history,
but when echoes promenade

through stillness,

You'll hear them
rushing to the mines

one more time.



For my fellow writers in Forest Lake

I started this in Holly Hardin's winter writing seminar last night.  A place filled with honesty, humor, talent, and sincerity, I hope to know all of you not just as writers, but as human beings as well.  With you, I'm a little less "fragmented."

Fragmented

This is how it goes
when broken in fragments
of two,
In one place, for sure
I remain;
roots bound deep and seeking,
in dry desert silt,
but a lack of presence
makes life grow barren,
and in searching for the sustenance
of presence,
they moved on
to find their needs met
through no fault of their own.

Another place,
strange.
frozen, and sparkling
with only intermittent color,
intriguing nonetheless.
An out of place adornment,
up for scrutiny,
A generous heart is mine,
but to risk it?
They reach out,
retracting their hand
in the same motion
Yet I find the courage
to not look away,
As I face the notion
of giving in
and putting my broken pieces
back as one.

The Confessional

Inspired by my writing teacher........it's your fault, Holly!!


The Confessional

Dark,
on the edge of musty
I enter
like Alice,
curious,
but with trepidation.

Down,
down,
down,
on my knees
in this deep well of mystery;
the little screened hole
where the white rabbit hides
holding the key.
He asks me to explain myself,
And the bewildered child
Is without words.

I must repent
so my fall will come to an end.
I nod my head,
and take penance
At least there is
only one door,
And I am free
Never to return.

More reworkings....old stuff to new

Drowning

You wander
into my existence,
a whirlwind
in an arbitrary gust;
steadying the anchor
in a changing sea,
breaking the glass,
and pulling the rip cord
in case of drowning.

Yet in the end,
you pushed my head
beneath the breakers
and held it there
without conscience,
expecting me
to keep breathing,
thinking I
would survive.

And you're still there
a caricature
that decorates the years.
You did
what was necessary
for yourself
of course.
Inside the clarity of time,
I remember
as you drift
and return.

Monarch Butterflies

Monarch Butterflies of Pacific Grove
Photo by Chris Lemoine

I don't do much rhyming poetry.  So I was pretty proud of this one.  From my 1998 chapbook.

Monarch Butterflies

Fragile, determined creatures
Your translucent crimson golds
Fill tranquil aqua skies,
Transcending vivid seasons
To a winter home you fly,

To a place near the Pacific
you cluster against the breeze,
Gleaming in shards of sunlight,
High above in autumn's trees

and huddled in subtle multitudes
you linger till spring's return,
A sample of nature's pure patience
Giving lessons man should learn.