How I shot myself in the foot

So, having nothing to do last Friday, I settled down to create my new verse form, as instructed. And in the long-standing Kent-family tradition of making things hard for yourself (or so I thought at the time), I thought I'd set myself a little challenge. The verse form is known as the "Triumverate of Alphabetical Discourse" or a TAD for short. The rules are as follows:

• There must be 27 stanzas, or verses, of four lines
  
• Each of the first 26 stanzas (or verses) must start with the corresponding letter of the alphabet
• For the first two lines of each stanza, every verb, noun, or other major, non-connective word (excluding pronouns) must start with the same letter as the first word.
• The second couplet/pair of lines is free except for every third verse, where the second couplet must be alphabetically sequential. That is to say, the first verb, noun, or other major non-connective (excluding pronouns) word must start with some letter (for the 3rd verse, always an 'a'), the next with a 'b', the next a 'c' and so on and so forth. The next verse (e.g. the 6th) must pick up where the previous one left off (e.g. if verse 3 ended with a word beginning with f, then verse 6's second couplet must begin with a g, or the first relevant word must).
• The first line of the second couplet (that is to say the 3rd line) must contain an internal rhyme, in the style of a limerick.
  
• The poem is to be written with a triplet rhythm, in homage to/the style of  Edward Lear's "the Owl and the Pussycat", with the first and third lines each having 11 syllables (with potential for a grace syllable beforehand), and the second and fourth lines each having 7 syllables (again with potential for a grace syllable either beforehand or afterwards).
• The final verse must have 12 lines, the first 9 having 11 syllables, the 10th having 7 syllables, and the last two lines following the previously established pattern for the final couplet of a verse that is a multiple of 3.

I'm going to finalise it later (the x verse is impossible without the internet, which I haven't had at home), and then I'll post it up.

: 08 Oct 2007 15:55 |  Tags: Icw Introduction To Creative Writing Tad |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem