Category Archives: poetry

Water Poetry 4: The Free Verse

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In this fourth installment of the Water Poetry Series, I present an open form or free verse poem about the San Francisco Bay. In contrast to the previous poetry forms which have strict rules on meter, rhyme, stanza structure, and even the content of the poem, the open form poem has no such rules. Therefore, it is the most difficult to describe. I haven’t been able to find a good set of guidelines on how to write one. In fact, there have been contentious schools of thought on what a true open form is. Continue reading →

Water Poetry 3: The Villanelle

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This is part 3 of a series of poems about bodies of water. Each poem is written in the form of a popular poetic style native to that body of water. In Water Poetry 1, I wrote a haiku about the Tama River in Japan and how it resembled the stream of people in a busy train station. In Water Poetry 2, I wrote a sonnet about London’s Thames River, putting the river’s long history into perspective against the London bombings and corporate greed. Water Poetry 4 riffs on the San Francisco Bay. Water Poetry 5 is a sijo about the Han River.

This post is about Paris’s Seine River, written in a villanelle.

la seine

Although it’s known as a French poetic form, there are probably more villanelles written in English. Continue reading →

Water Poetry 2: The Elizabethan Sonnet

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Earlier this week I presented the haiku. Today I present the Elizabethan sonnet. The first sonnets appeared in Italy, and is designed for the rhrythmic syncopation of the Italian language, where every other syllable is stressed. Adapted into English, that rhythm is somewhat awkwardly transposed into the iambic pentameter, a line of poetry that consists of 10 syllables, with every even syllable stressed. There are a variety of sonnets, each with its own rhyme scheme. But every sonnet is written in iambic pentameter.

So to write an Elizabethan sonnet you must follow these guidelines: Continue reading →

Water Poetry 1: The Haiku

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A few years back when I found myself in four countries in three months, I wrote four poems dedicated to a body of water in each of those countries. I also decided to write the poem in four poetic forms native to or popular in those countries. They included an Elizabethan sonnet about the Thames River, a villanelle about the Seine, an open-form or beat poem about the San Francisco Bay, and a haiku about the Tama River. I’ve since added a sijo about the Han River.

I’m going to print those here in a series, with an explanation about the poetic form so you can try it too. And periodically I’ll try to add more poems in different poetic forms around the world. I’m already planning to write a sijo about the Han River.

So today I present the haiku. Continue reading →