Saturday, April 11, 2015

Sappho, I hate you

Hello dear reader,


Today, rather than having a casual poem to write, we were challenged to get classically formal and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.


I may have lost count somewhere along the way, and to be honest I don’t really care. Today’s poem is done. It is by far the one I dislike the most. But I dislike Sappho worse.


Rod E. Kok
April 11, 2015


Evil lurks outside my mind; grasping, clutching.
I will fight and not give in; lusting, craving.
Sappho was this Satan’s spawn; writing, counting.
Challenge accepted.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah I hated this too.

    FORGOT ABOUT THE TROCHEES AND DACTYLS! (and why can I understand them when you explain them but not the bit on the site?)

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  2. Ha! Glad that I had 24 Hour Theatre and got to write a free write poem that day. I totally respect you for trying it though. And I am usually up for anything, but this THIS IS INSANITY!! Great job!!!

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