Monday, November 23, 2015

Monday Poetry Stretch - English Madrigal

I know that this is a holiday week, but this seemed like a good time to write a madrigal.

The English Madrigal is a 13 line poem written as a tercet, quatrain, and sextain. The lines of the tercet serve as refrains. The English madrigal is written in iambic pentameter and is rhymed. Here is the form.

1 A
2 B1
3 B2

4 a
5 b
6 repeat line 1 (A)
7 repeat line 2 (B1)

8 a
9 b
10 b
11 repeat line 1 (A)
12 repeat line 2 (B1)
13 repeat line 3 (B2)

You can read more about the madrigal form at Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides and Poetry Magnum Opus.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing an English madrigal. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

5 comments:

  1. Not home until midnight from Minneapolis, but determined to play more often:

    undoing day my eyelids dip to dim
    and founder words between my mouth and mind:
    beswaying lead me down deep rimes to find

    could now the never be a certain him?
    and could she ever burning be the kind?
    undoing day my eyelids dip to dim
    and founder words between my mouth and mind

    take always with me whether on a whim
    read the coming scene as real besigned
    I lightly under drowsy sleep untwine—
    undoing day my eyelids dip to dim
    and founder words between my mouth and mind:
    beswaying lead me down deep rimes to find

    © Heidi Mordhorst 2015

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  2. Hi Heidi! Nice! Happy Thanksgiving to you, Tricia, and whoever else is hanging around at Miss R. :)

    Winter Song

    My love is like a darkening winter day,
    With rarest smile and heart like falling snow.
    I long for soft blue skies, but I don’t go.

    When she is here the sunlight flits away.
    December winds begin to sigh and blow.
    My love is like a darkening winter day,
    With rarest smile and heart like falling snow.

    Others walk with girls who look like May.
    Their leaves are green and flowers bloom in rows,
    A kind of springtime gladness I don’t know.
    My love is like a darkening winter day,
    With rarest smile and heart like falling snow.
    I long for soft blue skies, but I don’t go.

    —Kate Coombs, 2015
    all rights reserved

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  3. Kate, that is very lovely. You were clearly wider awake when you wrote yours than I was! I wish you a fulsome Thanksgiving too, and also to you, Tricia. I'm very grateful for Monday Powtry Stretches!

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    Replies
    1. Let me try this one more time. This is my first (well, second, now) contribution to the site. I've been a vicarious participant for a very long time, enjoying the challenges, reading your very beautiful work. So, it's time for me to get into the mix. I shall begin with the madrigal...deep breath.

      You press your finger on my lips to hush
      the words of harsh refusal from their rush
      of unbid disappointment sure to crush

      the magic of this moment in first flush
      of yearning by your own lips, mine to brush.
      You press your finger on my lips to hush
      the words of harsh refusal from their rush.

      The magic of this moment in first flush
      of yearning by your own lips, mine to brush.
      Of yearning by your own lips, mine to brush,
      you press your finger on my lips to hush
      the words of harsh refusal from their rush
      of unbid disappointment sure to crush.

      Rights Reserved 2015 Judith Robinson

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