Welcome to my blog, where I take pleasure in words and pictures, be they my own or those of others. I'm a creative individual, and the crafty side I explore on my 'other blog', Picking Up The Threads, which I hope you'll visit too. I'm sure you understand that I have sole copyright of my original work and any of my contributions, so please ask if you want to use them. A polite request is rarely refused. So, as they used to say on the BBC's 'Listen With Mother' radio programme, many years ago: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."

Monday 2 September 2013

Trapped



I’m sitting high up in a tree.
Oh pity me.
In branches wide
I cannot hide.
My vertigo has trapped me here.
I’m full of fear,
and not resigned
within my mind.
Descent would be too perilous.
I’m querulous
I know, That’s true.
You would be too!

© Marilyn Brindley 


Tess at The Mag gave us the prompt picture and I had fun using a form that's new to me, The Minute. It's a recent form invented by an American, Verna Lee Hine Gardner and based on the number of seconds in a minute.
  • The syllables are spread over twelve lines: 8 in the first, fifth and ninth lines and 4 syllables in all the other lines. 
  • It's written in iambic rhythm (di-dum)
  • it is punctuated as prose, in that capital letters only appear after full stops and not necessarily at the beginning of lines.
  • It rhymes in couplets a,a,  b,b ,c,c, d,d, e,e, f,f.
(from 'The Poet's Craft' by Sandy Brownjohn.

Try it and see what you come up with; I'm definitely going to use this again.

The image is by Jeanie Tomanek

14 comments:

  1. I love it! The form really works. I am off to try it out

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  2. Vertigo,indeed...I suffer from a tad, too...

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  3. Sometimes my cat used to sing that song ... :D

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  4. I know the feeling! Well done...love poems that have a form..you did it!!

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  5. I cannot ride a Ferris Wheel ... let alone climb a tree ~~ nice writing!!

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  6. Hehehe! Vertigo? Your clever words are enough to send anybody's head spinning. :)

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  7. I agree with Jenny, this could have been written by a (very poetic) cat. And I learned some new words (perilous and querulous).

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  8. You have discovered a place where maths and english come together - not a bad placed to be trapped in.

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  9. This looks an interesting poetry form and you have used it very effectively. Poor 'you', forever stuck up a tree:-)

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  10. "The Fates lead on the willing person, the unwilling person, they drag "- gday Nell

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  11. Wow amazing form Nell! Vertigo I can relate to all too well.....it can make you feel like you are trapped on a carnival ride for sure. :-)

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  12. nicely done...and thanks for sharing

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