Hang with me here, it may be painful but then - the gain thingy. I'm gonna go to & fro here so stick around for a moment lest your eyes glaze too quickly but hit the road if you know you are hopeless at meter cuz you won't have a prayer with this. First, I'd like to introduce the winner of a Sapphic Stanza contest from 2013, you know her as the Queen of Seduction, so with no further ado, this is Eileen Manassion's correctly metered poem. (2 verses) This is a new contest!
Wounded, bleeding, dying in utter anguish
Downcast, burdened, constantly second guessing
Seraph’s heartbeat rhythmically wakens visions
Longing for heaven
Sunshine, laughter, beautiful running fountains
Nature, beaming, showing her outer garment
Children, lovers, cherubs and seraphs singing
Heavenly splendor
Eileen Manassian Ghali
(Eileen, bravo with not only the perfect meter - the easy part HAHA- but also a write worth its message - the most difficult aspect of this form, blending almost impossible meter with a worthy message.)
Now, one more Sapphic Stanza from a few years ago by someone. like Cher, who only need be announced by her first name, our Andrea; 1 verse
KOKOPELLI
Listen! There's a melody wafting sweetly
Tempting blossoms liltingly watch enchantment!
Kokopelli's bringing the beauty nearer ~
Magical flautist! (Special stuff, see what can be done by two fine poets!)
Copyright © Andrea Dietrich | Year Posted 2015
Definition
The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is a poetic form spanning four lines. The form is three hendecasyllabic lines of trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee and a concluding line of dactyl, trochee, known as the Adonic or adonean line.
Example
The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called Sapphics:
- Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
- Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
- Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
- Saw the reluctant. . .
Allen Ginsberg also experimented with the form:
Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed
Under boulder coverlets winter springtime hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends (hug me starts line 3)
gossip til autumn
- OKAY, trochee is nothing more than the opposite of iamb, the accented syllable is first so instead of xX it is Xx and dactyl is 3 syllables in a measure (beat) constructed of accented non non or Xxx. So, if I were to write Eileen's with the accented syllables in caps and un accented small
- it would look like this.
-
- WOUNDed, BLEEDing, DYing in UTter ANguish
- DOWNcast, BURdened, CONstant ly SECond GUESsing
- (same for line 3)
- Line 4 though is Xxx Xx LONGing for HEAven
-
- I'm going to make this a little tougher though because if you look at this ancient Greek form it does have that Asian influence. So let's take that final line and make it sort of an AHA! Which Andrea actually does in hers - SEE!
- Here's one I wrote as another example;
-
- Harvest Moon
- Harvest moon you welcome another season,
- leaving dreams of summer to winter's wishes;
- greens turn shades of orange and red and yellow ~
- marshmallow campfires.
- (See the twist, the jux, which adds a tad of fun)