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.
You came up with an X verse? I can’t even think of a (proper) verb beginning with X!
08 Oct 2007, 23:19
George Ttoouli
Yikes.
I can see that you’re going to make me break a sweat this year.
(Luke – ‘X-ray’. But that’s my only one.)
10 Oct 2007, 18:15
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