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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Sapphic Ode Sonnet

NOTE: This is admittedly and intentionally not the formal Sapphic Verse.
When I found this construct I did not capture the creator's name, and now that I am making the forms public, I would very much like to provide attribution.  If anyone can help it will be added with appreciation.


3 quatrains composed of 3 lines of iambic  tetrameter
   and a 4th line of iambic dimeter,
closing couplet in iambic tetrameter
Rhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg



Example Poem:

Seasoned Harvest (Sapphic Ode Sonnet)

We gamboled through the summer hay-
alfalfa growing green and tall
enough to hide in anyway,
when we were small.

I had no sibling, nor did she
and neighbors weren't  that near those days.
We'd languor in the apple tree
those summer days.

She grew up lithe and comely yet
while I was craggy faced and shy
through school she did not once forget
I was her guy.

When I asked she did not demure;
"Me, marry you?"she said, "Why sure."

© Lawrencealot - Oct. 18, 2012

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3 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 2, 2013 at 9:57 AM

    The Sapphic form is made up of four-line stanzas. Strictly speaking, each of the first three lines has eleven syllables that go like this:

    Line 1,2, and 3:

    - u - x - u u - u - -u -
    - u - x - u u - u - -u -
    - u - x - u u - u - -u -

    - = stressed, u = unstressed, x = either

    (dah di dah di dah di di dah di dah di)

    The last line has five syllables and goes like this:

    Line 4:

    - u u - u

    (dah di di dah di)

    Wikipedia has this wrong. Many people have this wrong. There are some people who have created an Aglocized version and claimed it was Sapphic, but it is not.

    Example:

    Overflowing wells filled with only sadness

    Steal my breath and still all my worldly madness

    With morosely tenderized passions laden

    There all my tremblings

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMarch 2, 2013 at 10:02 AM

    O-ver-FLOW-ing WELLS filled with O-nly SAD-ness
    STEAL my BREATH and STILL all my WORLD-ly MAD-ness
    WITH moROSEly TEN-der-izedPAS-sions LA-den
    THERE are my TREM-blings

    ReplyDelete
  3. LawrencealotMarch 2, 2013 at 4:22 PM

    Great comments here folks. Please pay attention, I concur with every comment this published poet has made.

    I knew this was a specific form of the Sapphic genre, and would like to credit the source of this Anglocized version, unfortunately a computer crash last year lost that data, and today's search for it failed to satisfy.

    That being said, when I did write this, the Sapphic Ode Sonnet form, was noted as distinct from Sapphic Ode verse.

    ReplyDelete