Tuesday, January 18, 2011

A Quintain

A quintain is any five line stanza poem of any meter or line length. Here I've used an a,b,a,a,b rhyme scheme. Fiddling with form is always a delightful challenge. This was inspired by one of my Walking/Nature Writing Workshops.

The Housatonic River wends its way through Bartholomew's Cobble near my home.

Cold Hope

Walk with me along the water’s edge
See that feather trapped there in the ice?
It means the geese were feeding on the sedge,
and rested there upon the rocky ledge,
hoping that brief respite would suffice.




contributed to One Shot Wednesday

15 comments:

Linda Bob Grifins Korbetis Hall said...

beautiful.
Glad to see you take the challenge and do an elegant job.

Brian Miller said...

nice...hope their respite was just enough...

Tabor said...

Very nicely done. Much more demanding than just free form poetry. I like this.

Ruth L.~ said...

I love the rhythm and rhyme of this. Who does it remind me of? It's such a familiar form...but I'm not up on my poets.

Love the photo.

Hilary said...

Lovely image.. the photo.. and the one your beautiful words create.

dustus said...

Great projection in your poem. Enjoyed it and like the way you captured the bend of the water's edge in the photo. Nice compositions.

cosmos cami said...

Such great imagery.
Thank you for providing a restful place for my mind today.

signed...bkm said...

beautiful quintain, the feather is a powerful image in this piece...bkm

Unknown said...

I often fear some feel short stanzas are too simplified or easy, but I think beauty lies within the brevity of the verse, and in the authors ability to paint a picture under such restraints. Wonderfully done! Thank you.

Laura said...

LOVE this...I can see that feather in my mind, caught in the ice...such a strong image.

Lee said...

And now I wonder if it did.

tattytiara said...

That has such a charming conversational tone.

Anonymous said...

What an image this created! It played from to end so smoothly... and I was left with a sense of calm... Very nice! And a great (and appropriate) respite from the drudgery called 'work'..

The picture you have put up totally complements the words...

Pauline said...

RI - thank you for your comment. Often I find the short lines harder to compose as they need to say so much with so little...

Thanks, Laura - it stayed with me, too and strayed into a poem

I hope so, Lee

It does, TT, and I see that after you mentioned it...

Thanks Kavisionz - the photo is of the place that inspired the poem...

Shashidhar Sharma said...

Dear Pauline
I enjoyed this one very much..
your walk along the waters edge, i could relate to very much.. thanks for sharing..

ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com
Twitter: @VerseEveryDay