Poetry Exercise 4 (dedicated to Samus)

Right, this exercise was 16 lines of iambic pentameter. With added incentive of 5 points for trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions, 2 points for enjambments, and 2 points for 'feminine' (i.e. unstressed) endings.

As a little conceit to justify using feminine endings in every line (thus cheaply boosting my score), I wrote about a woman. Namely the intergalactic bounty hunter babe, Samus Aran, heroine of the Metroid series of games. I reckon this gets a respectable score of 123. (Again, score doesn't denote quality. Just effort to include new techniques that may or may not be appropriate). Anyway, here's my poem, dedicated to the ideal woman...

Samus the mighty, awesome, kickass lady,
Fighting the evils of a dark, corrupted
And lonely universe. Oh, how I marvel
Your strange ability to morph your slender,
Proportioned form into a ball so tiny,
Round and compact. Where do you keep your missiles?
Where do you keep your bombs? Questions encompass
Your great existence. Questions lacking answers.
Monsters abound: insectoid pirates roaming
Through space's outer reaches in a vicious
And brutal quest for total domination;
Ruled by the Mother Brain but led by Ridley;
Last but by no means least, you face the Metroids -
Eponymous, impervious and deadly...
Upgrade your super freezing shot! And also
Your screw attack! Now fly your ship so funky.

Poetry Exercise 3

OK, last exercise should've been two instead of one. The first exercise was just a scansion thing. Anyway, this exercise has been interesting. Been given five specific topics. For each topic i have to write a pair of lines in iambic pentameter without caesura or enjambment. Then I have to repeat but this time using caesura and enjambement - while keeping pretty much the same meaning. Here are my efforts...

1. Outside the window.
The blue of sky is filled with clouds of white.
The tweets of birds are drowned by noisy cars.

A fluffy sky. I hear the twitt'ring birds
in avid chat. But no, the cars now roar.


2. What I'd like to eat.
Bring watermelon, mango, juicy fruits!
To quench my thirst and cool my too hot head.

No hunger here. I want the liquid cool
Of juicy fruits. My body craves the cool.


3. A recent dream.
I cannot last remember when I dreamt,
Perhaps it was a month or twelve ago.

No dreams for me. The last was maybe weeks
Or months ago. My poor encumbered mind!


4. Pesky incomplete chores.
The moving out and moving back again.
A trip abroad is also needing work.

There's so much work to do. A holiday
Abroad needs plans. But moving home comes first.


5. What I hate about my body.
I hate my ugly fingers and my toes,
I used to hate my straight and pointed nose.

If only I could change! Then twenty crap,
Crap digits would be gone. My nose would stay.

Poetry Exercise 1

Done my first poetry exercise from the book I bought. Basic iambic pentameters.

My boss is sitting opposite me now.
What is he thinking? That's what I would know.

Last night the weather hot and sultry was;
I wish a cooler temp'rature tonight.


A worm, a bird, a fox, a man, a worm.
A circle stretches round us ev'ry one.

This pencil writes; this rubber hates it all.

A fruity loaf for lunch but none for tea.

The changeling man has died. I shall not mourn
a life so filled with lies as this one was.

I work for poor and needy human beings.

My Hindu mate will love this line the most.

The Ode Less Travelled

Am quite excited by a book I bought today.

I was never really interested in poetry until doing my Latin and Greek GCSE's. I got to learn about metre, and poetic techniques in a way that was never taught in English. English poetry criticism always seemed pretty obscure - like you needed to know everything about the poem before you could appreciate it.

I found (Latin) verse composition interesting. At uni, Michael* bought a cool old second hand English verse composition book. Oxford's great for books. I was a bit envious, and have been keeping my eye out for a good English verse composition book since...

...and never came across one I wanted. Not in bookshops, nor second hand bookshops, nor amazon, nor ebay. I guess that shows the limits of search engines, because the book I've bought is entitled The Ode Less Travelled.

It's written by none other than Stephen Fry, that great British wit. And seems exactly like the book I've been searching for all these years.

I'll just quote one little passage...

But however well or badly we were taught English literature, how many of us have ever been shown how to write our own poems?

"Don't worry, it doesn't have to rhyme. Don't bother with metre and verses. Just express yourself. Pour out your feelings."

Suppose you had never played the piano in your life.

"Don't worry, just lift the lid and express yourself. Pour out your feelings."

We have all heard children do just that and we have all wanted to treat them with great violence as a result.

Prince of Persia - Fallen King [DS]

Play it for:
* really innovative controls!
* very forgiving.

Avoid it for:
* over too soon.

Mishearing The Pussycat Dolls

Successful in the charts around the world right now is surely one of the strangest musical collaborations ever. The Pussycat Dolls and A. R. Rahman. On the one hand you have a bunch of former erotic dancers, whose success is more due to their sleazy looks and tacky songs than their ability to barely* hold a tune. On the other, you have a plain-looking spiritual man, whose great success is due to phenomenal musicality.

I must confess, I cannot bring myself to listen too closely to those sipid sirens. Thus in their recent song "When I Grow Up", I thought for ages that they sang "I want to have boobies"! (It's apparently "I want to have groupies").

Perhaps I'm right though. And a great deception is being played on the listening public. I raise this possibility because yet again my ears are at dispute with the 'official' lyrics. I refer to the song supposedly called "Jai Ho!"

It's clear to me, that rather than being a song with the message "May you be victorious" or "You are my destiny", it is about something shockingly mundane. A. R. Rahman is in fact asking one of the Pussycat whores to fetch him a cup of tea.

So next time you hear this song, the highlight of which is actually just the two words sung repeatedly by Rahman, join in with him and sing aloud "Chai Ho!"



* Split infinitive is deliberate and correct in this instance. 'Barely' as in 'just about' rather than 'without clothing'. Though now I think about it...

Lunacy

"There may be trouble ahead
But while there's moonlight and music
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance"

- Irving Berlin

Moonlight. Isn't it cool? What does it mean to you? To me, it's one of the most perfect topics for tangential ramblings.

Moonlight. I've just been watching Moonlighting again. What a perfect television programme. Mysterious as the moon itself. Or perhaps not... the ridiculous plots have twists that become predictable. But that doesn't matter. Because it's about the enigmatic chemistry between Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis - think Beatrice and Benedick put in the 1980's. It's about the crazy things that happen; I've had the joy of watching a car chase in a hearse and an episode with a leprechaun. It's about unashamedly intelligent dialogue, with all sorts of linguistic tricks knowingly and ostentatiously deployed.

Moonlight. There's an item in World of Warcraft "Rituals of the New Moon" - that can turn you into a wolf. Cue pointless debate on the forums. "It's about werewolves." "No it's not. Werewolves are at the full moon." "Ah, but Twilight's werewolf-related sequel is New Moon." I've always been more inclined to werewolves than vampires. Vampires are evil. Werewolves are just bestial. Also, from a spiritualistic point of view, vampires are evil energy draining entities, werewolves are shamanistic soul shapeshifters.

Moonlight. The reflection of the sun's light. By a curious quirk of fate, the moon rotates upon it's axis in such a way that only one side is ever facing the earth. There is the unseen dark side of the moon.

Moonlight. The sight of which indicates the start of an Islamic month. The means by which Ramadan should be started and ended if it weren't for petty religious politics.

Moonlight. The three phases of the moon. Athena, Demeter, Hera. Three different types of female energy conveyed by the moon's light.

Moonlight. One of my friends has been mooning lately. To him this means a form of pleasant daydreaming. In Britain, mooning is a base act of showing off your bare behind in public - especially when pressing it against a vehicle's window.

Moonlight. Romantic. Mysterious. Magical.