Post by Edward Cheever on Apr 1, 2010 14:14:12 GMT -6
Arc
Here, from the stage of steel and plastic, built
With glist’ning sides, reflecting sun and stars,
A Rocket standing tall. It blasts full tilt,
Its plume expands ‘cross crowds and fields. Eschars
Of ice then shatters, crystals raining down
Amongst the flames that lance the Earth and stain
The stage with ash. The friction sears the crown
and scorches ‘long its sides. Against the strain
And painful pressure, pulling it apart,
The Rocket screams and struggles strong. It can’t
Submit to winds, it is the perfect dart.
The pressure leaves. The end drops out. Aslant,
It crosses space and atmosphere, while drifting
Beneath the twinkling tiny star lights, shifting
Through silence, solace, celestial sifting,
Then plunging deftly down to Earth. A pant,
A heave, as weight regains its hold. A start,
A slam, the Rocket roars against the winds
And picks up terrifying speed. The art
Of fire, the painted blaze, a fiery fane,
Consumes the falling metal angel. Brown
And burnt and charring black, a melting vane
Breaks free. The Rocket tumbles as slowdown
Destroys its flight and course. Explosions mar
The mirrored sides; wind whistles, crying lilt.
The Rocket flew above the sky, so far,
So high, but now is buried in the silt.
My Explaination:
I wrote this poem keeping the structure of the poem in mind particularly. As I've explained to a few of you before, I took the typical Shakespearian Sonnet structure (abab,cdcd,efef,gg) and meter (iambic pentameter) and mirrored it, hinging the structure on the second line of the couplet.
The resulting structure is abab,cdcd,efef,ggg,fefe,dcdc,baba.
The reason I use this structure i because I was interested primarily in the way the manipulation of common poetic structures can alter the meanings associated with those structures.
For instance, the Shakespearian sonnet tends to introduce a problem, explore the problem and come to a conclusion at the end, in the two couplets.
By mirroring the structure, my poem follows the original Sonnet structure by building to a conclusion, but then unravels again until the topic comes back to where it began, more or less like an arc, thus the name.
I chose the imagery primarily because that the path of a rocket would mirror the structure beat for beat, and I tried to match the imagery in the mirrored stanzas as well. For instance, the cdcd and dcdc stanzas both primarily deal with fire and heat imagery.
Since sonnets tend to focus on a theme like love or beauty, I made the point of the poem at the Apex, or the hinge-like segment ggg, to primarily exemplify the beauty and feeling of outer space. To that end, I used vocabularly emphasizing this, along with alliteration. Most importantly, though, I switched to a different variation of Iambic Pentameter to enhance the softening effect, specifically a variation with a feminine ending in which the last beat isn't stressed.
Aside from that, I wanted to make the beat and rhythm of the poem subtle, so I made sure to limit the number of times a sentence ended on a rhyme.
I tell you, this would have been a much harder poem to rhyme if I didn't have a rhyming dictionary. The hardest rhymes we the C and G lines, and as some of you might notice, the last F line is actually broken. I didn't have a rhyme to fit there, and it is the one thing I'm most disappointed in about the poem, though I think that the fact that the break mirrors the breaking up of the rocket makes it tolerable.
What do you think?
Here, from the stage of steel and plastic, built
With glist’ning sides, reflecting sun and stars,
A Rocket standing tall. It blasts full tilt,
Its plume expands ‘cross crowds and fields. Eschars
Of ice then shatters, crystals raining down
Amongst the flames that lance the Earth and stain
The stage with ash. The friction sears the crown
and scorches ‘long its sides. Against the strain
And painful pressure, pulling it apart,
The Rocket screams and struggles strong. It can’t
Submit to winds, it is the perfect dart.
The pressure leaves. The end drops out. Aslant,
It crosses space and atmosphere, while drifting
Beneath the twinkling tiny star lights, shifting
Through silence, solace, celestial sifting,
Then plunging deftly down to Earth. A pant,
A heave, as weight regains its hold. A start,
A slam, the Rocket roars against the winds
And picks up terrifying speed. The art
Of fire, the painted blaze, a fiery fane,
Consumes the falling metal angel. Brown
And burnt and charring black, a melting vane
Breaks free. The Rocket tumbles as slowdown
Destroys its flight and course. Explosions mar
The mirrored sides; wind whistles, crying lilt.
The Rocket flew above the sky, so far,
So high, but now is buried in the silt.
My Explaination:
I wrote this poem keeping the structure of the poem in mind particularly. As I've explained to a few of you before, I took the typical Shakespearian Sonnet structure (abab,cdcd,efef,gg) and meter (iambic pentameter) and mirrored it, hinging the structure on the second line of the couplet.
The resulting structure is abab,cdcd,efef,ggg,fefe,dcdc,baba.
The reason I use this structure i because I was interested primarily in the way the manipulation of common poetic structures can alter the meanings associated with those structures.
For instance, the Shakespearian sonnet tends to introduce a problem, explore the problem and come to a conclusion at the end, in the two couplets.
By mirroring the structure, my poem follows the original Sonnet structure by building to a conclusion, but then unravels again until the topic comes back to where it began, more or less like an arc, thus the name.
I chose the imagery primarily because that the path of a rocket would mirror the structure beat for beat, and I tried to match the imagery in the mirrored stanzas as well. For instance, the cdcd and dcdc stanzas both primarily deal with fire and heat imagery.
Since sonnets tend to focus on a theme like love or beauty, I made the point of the poem at the Apex, or the hinge-like segment ggg, to primarily exemplify the beauty and feeling of outer space. To that end, I used vocabularly emphasizing this, along with alliteration. Most importantly, though, I switched to a different variation of Iambic Pentameter to enhance the softening effect, specifically a variation with a feminine ending in which the last beat isn't stressed.
Aside from that, I wanted to make the beat and rhythm of the poem subtle, so I made sure to limit the number of times a sentence ended on a rhyme.
I tell you, this would have been a much harder poem to rhyme if I didn't have a rhyming dictionary. The hardest rhymes we the C and G lines, and as some of you might notice, the last F line is actually broken. I didn't have a rhyme to fit there, and it is the one thing I'm most disappointed in about the poem, though I think that the fact that the break mirrors the breaking up of the rocket makes it tolerable.
What do you think?