Mild day
yellow bells bloom
banishing winter gloom
sweet harbinger of coming spring.
Gentle wind bids bronze chimes to sway and ring
branches still bare but teem with life
songbirds perch; squirrels play
Outside, I’ll stay~~
mild day.
neptune,
an ice giant
with no solid surface;
eighth and last in Solar System.
the windiest with supersonic winds
that far exceeds the speed of sound.
planet with sixteen moons;
blue in color...
neptune
,
Canvas
await brushstrokes
Palette colors the muse
As the artist's vision takes shape
The canvas absorbs artistic concepts
A beautiful scene emerges
Nature's inspiration
In each brushstroke
Canvas
Listen
to the wind chimes
playing a melody
As the wind goes whispering by
Songbirds, not to be outdone, join in
Their dulcet songs lilt on the breeze
Leaves rustle in accord
The band plays on
Listen
summer
sun tan oil
teenage laughs on a beach
the smell of fishy saltwater
sandy beach ball landing on a stomach
child in swimsuit giggling
senior man falls asleep
great sightseeing
summer
Smooth moves
rivers perform
with intuitive flow.
Even when storms cause them to churn,
their God bequeathed responses are right on.
Not so, emotions in my heart,
besieging my faith's hold.
My needs pursue
smooth flows.
Current
glides in wild slope
along the dense forest,
rattling and burbling over rocks.
As my paddling arms sway with wind’s tempo,
canoe pulses with the wild flow.
Waves roll to smack the edge…
Vines tickle strong
current.
Rhythm of a River
Soothing
whispers in spring;
with rolling summer rains
revolves to robust roaring rush,
riding on crest of rough rocks on its bed,
chills down to soft rippling rhythm
with arrival of fall,
then silent and
soothing.
For rent:
a room with three
rowdy, reckless roommates
who revel in raving it up.
Curtains they've ripped and carpets they've ruined
Worn sofa and rancid kitchen
all greatly reduced with
a garage too
for rent.
diamond
in its rough state
clear, transparent, and hard
gifted jeweler brings out best
now through his hands it reflects sparkling light
so are we like a rough diamond
through Jesus we become
a cut gemstone
diamond
river,
flow by my feet~
as waters of my mind
do overtake and wet the page
and droplets step-dance to create, backstage.
for manufactured, processed verse
could never pulse with life,
the rhythm of a
river.
[On AI]
ROLLING WITH THE Rs Poetry Contest
Nette Onclaud
8/5/25
Special
Tenant wanted
Suitable applicant
Is responsible and behaves
Check marks to bookworms over butterflies
No drama, visitors, or noise
Nice-sized room is furnished
Landlord's hamlet
Special
Written: August 5, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Nette Onclaud
***********
River,
rippling refrain,
rushing, rolling, revived,
ribbons of rain rearranging
rocks, roots, reflections — reckless, radiant.
Rivulets ripple, ringing rhythms
resound, reaching, reeling
rousing rare range —
River.
Trauma,
loiters and lurks,
terror of scarred recall,
that primal bug I yearn to squash,
volcanic magma, spewing ruptured bile,
past life nemesis a stern plight,
I shudder, weep and pine,
at graves filled by,
trauma
River
flowing in curves.
Waves dance and propagate
in rhythmic pattern of ripples.
Cadence of flow to change from ebb to tide.
Alluvial deposits on
soaked soil of either bank.
zig - zag flow of
River.
Introduction
The opening phrase carries unusual dramatic weight: it must invite the reader forward and still possess enough resonance to sound altered when it returns. Between those appearances, the poem expands and contracts, giving even a modest subject a sense of approach, culmination, and retreat. The pleasure lies not only in what the poet says, but in how the intervening lines teach us to hear the beginning again.
As you read the community poems, compare the different uses writers find for that movement. One poet may build toward a vivid central image; another may use the widening space for confession, argument, humor, prayer, or narrative detail. The narrowing lines can resolve an idea, but they can also withhold, contradict, mourn, or sharpen it. Voice matters greatly: a plain opening can acquire gravity, while an initially dramatic phrase may return with irony or tenderness.
Reading several Rictameters side by side reveals possibilities that an isolated example cannot. You can observe which poems treat the middle as a summit, which create a turn before the contraction, and which make the visual outline echo an emotional rise and fall. You may also notice how poets negotiate the tension between natural speech and syllabic discipline. Browse beyond the first example and consider what changes between the two appearances of the repeated line. That interval is where each writer establishes an individual interpretation of the form.
Reading Guide
A useful way to read a Rictameter is to treat it as a shaped journey rather than a syllable-counting display. The lines gradually gain room and then surrender it, so attention naturally moves toward the broad center and back toward the opening words. Ask not only whether the pattern is recognizable, but what the pattern accomplishes. Does expansion permit discovery, accumulation, or emotional exposure? Does contraction feel like resolution, loss, discipline, or return? As you compare community poems, listen for the difference between a poem that merely occupies its structure and one whose subject seems to require that particular movement.
- The opening phrase: Notice whether it is concrete, mysterious, declarative, or emotionally charged. Because it must bear the ending as well as the beginning, its language needs more than introductory value. When comparing poems, ask: what meanings are latent in the opening that emerge only later?
- The approach to the center: Watch how each successive line enlarges the thought. Some poets add images; others complicate a claim or intensify a feeling. Ask: does the poem genuinely develop, or does it use extra words merely to fill expanding space?
- The central line: The widest moment often attracts emphasis, but it need not contain the loudest statement. It may offer a revelation, a richly detailed image, or a deceptive calm. Ask: why has the poet placed this particular material at the poem's point of greatest verbal breadth?
- The inward movement: After the center, observe what is removed or distilled. Effective contraction is not simply the first half played backward. Ask: do the shorter lines increase urgency, create silence, or guide the poem toward a newly understood return?
- Sound under pressure: Listen for stresses, vowel patterns, consonants, and pauses. Syllable control can produce clipped speech or flowing phrasing depending on word choice. Ask: where does the language sound inevitable, and where can you hear the poet negotiating with the pattern?
- The repeated ending: Read the final line against its first appearance. Repetition may produce closure, irony, grief, reassurance, entrapment, or comic reversal. Ask: has the poem changed the phrase, or has the phrase exposed something unchanged in the speaker?
Read each poem once for sense, once aloud for movement, and once with attention to its visual and verbal balance. Comparing several poets' approaches will show how much expressive variety can exist within the same narrowing return.
Writing Tips
Begin with an experience that can plausibly expand, reach a point of pressure, and then be distilled. A Rictameter often rewards material containing a change of perception: an object examined more closely, a memory unfolding, an emotion admitted by degrees, or a claim reconsidered. Before counting anything, sketch the poem's movement in prose. Decide what the speaker knows at the start, what becomes possible near the center, and why the opening language deserves to return.
- Choose a load-bearing opening. Test several brief phrases before committing. A weak label or generic abstraction may satisfy the pattern but leave the ending with nothing to transform. Favor words with sensory presence, emotional ambiguity, or more than one possible relation to the subject.
- Design the expansion as development. Each longer line should earn its added room. Introduce a sharper image, deepen the speaker's motive, alter scale, or complicate what came before. Avoid padding with unnecessary modifiers, articles, or explanatory phrases simply because a line needs additional syllables.
- Give the center a purpose. The broadest line can act as a summit, hinge, panorama, or momentary release. Decide which role serves the poem. Placing every revelation there can become predictable; sometimes a quiet central image creates more tension by postponing the decisive turn.
- Make contraction active. Do not treat the second half as cleanup. Let it reinterpret the ascent. You might move from outer scene to inner consequence, from description to address, or from certainty to doubt. Shortening lines can mimic fading, tightening, falling, focusing, or loss.
- Count after finding the living sentence. Draft natural language first, then reshape it. Beginning with arithmetic often produces inverted syntax, filler, and vague diction. When adjustment is needed, replace the whole phrase rather than adding a disposable word solely to make the count work.
- Use sound to conceal the scaffolding. Vary sentence endings, place pauses where thought requires them, and use recurring sounds to connect the two halves. If every line closes with the same grammatical rhythm, the poem may feel mechanical even when its images are strong.
- Protect the speaker's voice. Syllabic pressure can tempt writers into vocabulary the speaker would never use. Keep diction consistent with the poem's emotional situation. Formal elegance is less persuasive than a voice that sounds alert, particular, and human.
- Prepare the return without announcing it. A common beginner mistake is to explain the opening phrase immediately before repeating it. Trust juxtaposition. The final recurrence is strongest when the intervening poem has changed its emotional conditions and the reader can feel that change without a summary.
During revision, read the draft aloud without looking at the line arrangement, then read it again while marking syllables and stresses. The first reading tests whether the poem survives as speech; the second tests its formal control. Examine every added adjective, every awkward inversion, and every line break that interrupts meaning. Finally, cover the middle and compare the repeated line at both ends. If it carries exactly the same emotional charge twice, revise the journey between them until the return becomes necessary rather than merely required.
Interesting Facts
- The smallest line can carry the largest burden. The returning phrase occupies little space, yet it must introduce the poem, remain memorable through the expansion, and absorb the consequences of everything that follows. Its brevity increases rather than reduces its importance.
- The visual outline creates expectations before the poem is read. A widening and narrowing text suggests growth followed by reduction, but the content can resist that implication. A poet may describe collapse during expansion or increasing certainty during contraction, creating productive tension between shape and meaning.
- The center is prominent but not automatically climactic. Readers may anticipate a peak there, which allows an experienced writer to offer a pause, an image, or a false resolution instead. The emotional turn can arrive later and gain force by departing from visual expectation.
- Repetition does not guarantee closure. The last line may feel conclusive, but it can equally suggest recurrence, obsession, imprisonment, ritual, or an unanswered question. Identical language can leave the reader in a radically different emotional place.
- Syllable and rhythm are not the same. Two lines with equivalent syllabic length may move very differently because of stress, word size, punctuation, and syntax. Reading aloud reveals whether the pattern breathes naturally or calls attention to its construction.
- Comparison exposes hidden choices. When you browse several community poems, you can see how one shared architecture accommodates narrative, lyric meditation, comedy, and address. Differences in pacing and placement become clearer, broadening the reader's sense of what counts as a convincing interpretation.
Popular Themes
Subject matter works best here when it can participate in the poem's outward and inward motion. The structure invites a writer to approach something, dwell within it, and return carrying altered knowledge. The themes below are literary possibilities rather than measured popularity rankings; their value comes from the ways they can interact with expansion, contraction, and repeated language.
- Memory and return: A remembered scene can gather detail as the lines widen, then narrow toward the word or image that first unlocked it. The ending may suggest acceptance, distortion, longing, or the mind's inability to escape a recurring moment.
- Grief and absence: Expansion allows the lost person or place to become briefly present through particulars. Contraction can enact what remains after those details recede, giving the final repetition the quality of a name, ache, prayer, or echo.
- Natural cycles: Tides, seasons, dawn, weather, flowering, and decay possess movements that can converse with the poem's shape. The challenge is to use precise observation rather than relying on the pattern alone to supply meaning.
- Love and changing intimacy: The form can move from an intimate address into shared history, desire, conflict, or revelation before returning to the original words. Those words may then sound affectionate, wounded, ironic, or newly committed.
- Decision and moral conflict: A brief initial claim can widen into evidence and competing motives. As the poem contracts, the speaker may choose, hesitate, or discover that the opening certainty was incomplete.
- Transformation and identity: Because the language returns while its context changes, the form suits questions about whether a person remains the same through growth, illness, aging, migration, or self-recognition.
- Humor and reversal: The reader's expectation of a meaningful return can support comic timing. An apparently serious opening may be reframed by an absurd detail or a sudden shift in scale, provided the joke also rewards rereading.
As you read the community poems, compare writers who address similar subjects. Notice how image selection, voice, and the timing of the turn can make the same theme feel contemplative in one poem, urgent in another, and playfully subversive in a third.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension lies between predetermined shape and genuine discovery. The poem visibly promises expansion and return, so the reader anticipates a journey even before understanding its subject. A technically recognizable draft may fulfill that promise only on the page: its lines become longer and shorter, and its beginning reappears. A memorable poem makes the movement psychologically or imaginatively necessary. The subject opens because the lines open; the thought becomes concentrated because the available space contracts.
Strong examples therefore build two kinds of momentum at once. The first is structural, carrying attention toward the broad center and back. The second is semantic, created by image, syntax, voice, and implication. When these reinforce each other, an accumulating description may feel like fascination taking hold, while the inward movement may resemble surrender, clarification, or erasure. Editors and attentive readers notice whether the poem's key details occupy consequential positions. A central image should not be there merely because it fits, and the final return should do more than announce that the exercise is complete.
Predictability is the form's most obvious risk, but mechanical surprise can be equally limiting. If every poem treats the middle as a loud climax, the architecture becomes a diagram rather than an expressive instrument. Yet withholding all development leaves the repeated ending unsupported. Other weaknesses arise when syllable management forces unnatural word order, when abstract statements replace images, or when the speaker explains how the reader should interpret the return. Over-explanation is especially costly because repetition already invites comparison. The reader wants space to recognize what has changed.
Individuality remains visible in the choices the pattern does not determine: who speaks, what is withheld, how sentences cross line endings, where silence enters, which sounds recur, and whether the second half resolves or destabilizes the first. One poet may make contraction feel like focus; another may make it feel like diminishment. One may use the central breadth for lush description; another for a spare declaration surrounded by pauses. Comparing multiple community poems develops judgment because quality here is relational. Readers begin to distinguish accurate construction from expressive inevitability, and novelty from a deeper transformation of the opening words. The finest test is not simply whether the line returns, but whether the reader could have heard it this way before completing the poem.
Read, Write & Share
Read beyond a single example and let several community poems revise your sense of what the form can hold. Compare how different poets approach the central expansion, shape the inward movement, and change the emotional meaning of the returning line. When a poem stays with you, leave a thoughtful comment about a particular image, turn, sound, or structural choice.
Then try composing your own Rictameter and publish it on PoetrySoup. Begin with words worth encountering twice, and use the intervening journey to make their return feel newly earned. Your interpretation can become part of the conversation future readers explore.
Collection Statistics
This collection contains 257 Rictameter poems, offering readers many opportunities to compare subjects, voices, images, turns, and approaches to the returning line. Across a collection of this size, poets may follow the conventions closely, adapt them to suit a particular expressive purpose, or challenge reader expectations while preserving a recognizable relationship to the form. Reading several examples helps reveal both the shared architecture and the individual decisions made within it.
Rictameter Categories
Definition | What is Rictameter in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.