Creative WritingPoetry Examples:

Ballad Blank Verse Concrete/Shape Shakespearian Sonnet Found Haiku Limerick Ode Ottava Rima Prose Tanka Terza Rima

BALLAD

“The Legend of Lady Godiva”(based on British Legend)

When powerful lords ruled Englandin the days of King Canute,Godgifu rode through Coventrywearing her birthday suit.Society then had womenwell out of public view.Godgifu showed much charity.She was religious too.Leofric, the Earl of Mercia,her husband in God's name,would persecute the church she servedand commonfolk the same.To pay for Canute's bodyguardhe never showed mercy,imposing heavy taxes onthe folk of Coventry.Godgifu quarrelled frequentlyto beg he change his ways,to plead that he be lenientand not take all their pays.One day they had an argumentthis much he had to say,"I promise to remit the taxif you on market daywill ride the streets of Coventrystark naked on your horse."Knowing full well his pious wifewould not do this, of course.But Leofric had forgotten ofGodgifu's great concernand compassion for the people.They showed respect in turn.Lady Godgifu requestedthat people stay insidebehind their shuttered windows whenshe passed by on her ride.

“The Legend of Lady Godiva” (Cont.)

It was such a famous journey.The beautiful and fairLady Godgifu rode the streetsclothed just in long blonde hair.There only was one person whocould not resist a peep,the tailor, now called 'Peeping Tom'struck blind, and left to weep.The tyrant Leofric kept his wordand stopped collecting tax.He changed his ways. In Coventrythe people could relax.The couple patched their differences,sought out God together.The legend of that daring ridewill live on forever.It was such a famous journey.The beautiful and fairLady Godgifu rode the streetsclothed just in long blonde hair.

Home Burial by Robert Frost

Blank Verse“Home Burial” Robert Frost

We are all doomed to broken-off careers,And so’s the nation, so’s the total race.The earth itself is liable to that fateOf meaninglessly being broken off.(And hence so many literary tearsAt which my inclination is to scoff.)I may have wept that any should have diedOr missed their chance, or not have been their best,Or been their riches, fame, or love denied;On me as much as any is the jest.I take my incompleteness with the rest.God bless himself can no one else be blessed.

O hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.And were an epitaph to be my storyI’d have a short one ready for my own.I would have written of me on my stone:I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Excerpt from Macbeth, William Shakespeareom MacbTomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Concrete/Shape

Shakespearian Sonnet

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments, love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever fixèd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate.Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Found Poem

The following poem is made up of random Tweets

mostly sadelaborate schemes and elaborate liestrapped in an open space, illusion of my owni will save myselfthere is somewhere i'd rather bei'm such a positive person, oh waiti need a new perspective,i was never meant to stay in your phone who wants to donate to me for the sake that i am pathetic?i'm grappling with the fact that in a way, i'm kind of innocenti have gotten so bad recently to the point that whenever i go out, i think everyone is judging me on my face, my hair, my body, my clothesterribly good and terribly bad are both equally terrible

Based on To Kill A Mockingbird

This is a truththat applies to the human race,yet to no particular race of men:You never really understand a person,until you consider things from his point of view,climb inside of his skin,and walk around in it.One thing that doesn't abide,by majority rule;a person's conscience.It was times like theseWhen;you rarely win,only children weep,the dead bury the dead,one does not love breathing,and there’s just one kind of folks:folks.I don't pretend to understand,Why reasonable people,go stark raving mad,simply because they're still human;that the one place,where a man ought to get a square deal,is in a courtroom,be he any color of the rainbow.

Based on To Kill A Mockingbird, cont.

It was times like these,That,food comes with death,flowers with sickness,and little things in between;two soap dolls,a broken watch and chain,a pair of good-luck pennies,and our lives.It made me sad.Yet delete the adjectives,and I'd have the facts;it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

HaikuRichard Wright (1908-1960)

Whitecaps on the bay:A broken signboard bangingIn the April wind.

Kijo Murakami (1865-1938)

First autumn morning:the mirror I stare intoshows my father's face.

LimerickThere was an Old Man in a tree,Who was horribly bored by a Bee;When they said, 'Does it buzz?'He replied, 'Yes, it does!''It's a regular brute of a Bee!'

There was an Old Man with a flute,A sarpint ran into his boot;But he played day and night,Till the sarpint took flight,And avoided that man with a flute.

Lyric “Dying”by Emily Dickinson

I heard a fly buzz when I died;The stillness round my formWas like the stillness in the airBetween the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,And breaths were gathering sureFor that last onset, when the kingBe witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed awayWhat portion of me ICould make assignable,-and thenThere interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,Between the light and me;And then the windows failed, and thenI could not see to see.

Lyric example #2

“I felt a Funeral in my brain” Emily Dickenson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,And Mourners to and froKept treading - treading - till it seemedThat Sense was breaking through -And when they all were seated,A Service, like aDrum -Kept beating - beating - till I thoughtMy Mind was going numb - And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my SoulWith those same Boots of Lead, again,Then Space - began to toll,As all the Heavens were a Bell,And Being, but an Ear,And I, and Silence, some strangeRace Wrecked, solitary, here -And then a Plank in Reason, broke,And I dropped down, and down –

And hit a World, at every plunge,And Finished knowing---then –

OdeOde to a NightingaleJohn Keats, 1795 - 1821

1. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 2. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 3. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 4. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves; And mid-May’s eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 6. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod. 7. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 8. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toil me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

Ottava RimaLord ByronI want a hero: an uncommon want,When every year and month sends forth a new one,Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,The age discovers he is not the true one;Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,I’ll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—We all have seen him, in the pantomime,Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.- Don Juan, Canto the First, Stanza I

In this example, note the abababcc rhyme scheme and how Lord Byron generally uses iambic pentameter verses but modifies it for certain verses.

For example, line 6 is in strict iambic pentameter:

I’ll THERE | fore TAKE | our AN | cient FRIEND | Don JUAN

He is There

When sorrow lies entrenched within your heartAnd doubts, like ocean waves, around you churn,When chaos reigns o’er life and won’t departAnd for the peace of yesterday you yearn,When evil thoughts are tearing you apartAnd there is nowhere left for you to turn,When dark of night persists throughout your day,It’s time to fall upon your knees and pray.

For God is there, He’s always by your side,He is your life’s companion and your friend,He’s with you through each bitter storm you ride,From morn’s first light to sunset at day’s end.You must give up your bitterness and prideAnd to your Lord extend your hand again.He only wants for you to ask Him inAnd you will be forgiven for your sin.

Prose

“Be Drunk”Charles Baudelaire, 1821 - 1867

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

Tanka

Beautiful mountainsRivers with cold, cold water.White cold snow on rocksTrees over the place with frostWhite sparkly snow everywhere.

Pretty colored treesThat are orange, red and yellowIn the Autumn airAn old barn by the waterWith a white fence around it.

The leaves change colourWhen the fall winds start to blow,Yellow, orange and brownAre the colours of fall leaves,Slowly falling from the trees.

Terza Rima

Acquainted with the Night By Robert Frost (1923)

I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.I have stood still and stopped the sound of feetWhen far away an interrupted cryCame over houses from another street,But not to call me back or say good-bye;And further still at an unearthly height,One luminary clock against the skyProclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.I have been one acquainted with the night.