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Posted by: JustDaniel Mar 5 07, 15:02

So Quickly

So quickly has lone eagle spread
her wings to glide beyond his head
and leave behind this waddling duck
who'd quacked when she had lost her pluck
here molting... helped her leave her bed.

He flaps his wings in honor, sheds
a tear of joy... but where he treads
e'en webbed feet slip upon its muck
so quickly.

He gains his balance; now he's steady,
shakes his feathers, looks ahead
then tries his flapping wings with pluck
to join his fellows who've been struck
by warming waters strewn with bread
so quickly.

© MLee Dickens'son 04 March 2007

Posted by: jgdittier Mar 6 07, 17:22

Dear Daniel,
Often poets find a form and adhere to it as if it were gospel.
For me, as my favorite form is the rondeau, I'm indicative of my previous statement.
Yet here you've spiced the rondeau with a dash of deviation that makes this a gourmet's delight.
My compliments to the chef!
Cheers, Ron jgd

Posted by: Cathy Mar 7 07, 10:34

Hi Daniel,

I read this and started to post a comment but I keep getting booted! Oh that irks me! LOL Anyhoo... I will try to crit as soon as my pc will allow. It doesn't give me much time between boots!

Cat

Posted by: JLY Mar 15 07, 05:54

Daniel,
You are quite adept at this form.

You are a big proponent of contracted words...but this one e'en just doesn't seem to roll off the tongue. I find it to be a stumbling point to your smooth rythym.

JLY

Posted by: Cleo_Serapis Mar 17 07, 13:28

Hello Daniel.

I enjoyed your Rondeau but have noted a deviation from the form's rhyme scheme (in S3 below). I imagined the eagles soaring, him trying to catch up and also read this as a metaphor of a person who feels they somwhow didn't fit in, stumbles and tries again in another place (or with another group) with confidence gained.

Cheers
~Cleo

[add] {delete} (comment)


So quickly has lone eagle spread
her wings to glide beyond his head
and leave behind this waddling duck
who'd quacked when she had lost her pluck
here molting... helped her leave her bed.
Great opening!

He flaps his wings in honor, sheds
a tear of joy... but where he treads
e'en webbed feet slip upon its muck
so quickly.
(I also feel a bump in an otherwise very smooth rhythm in L3 above – not sure if you mean ‘even’ but it and ‘upon’ are not as smooth to my ear. Perhaps something like:
even webbed feet do slip in muck )

He gains his balance; now he's steady, (You’ve got the wrong rhyme scheme here, it should rhyme with ‘spread’. Perhaps:
He gains his balance; she has fled…
OR
He gains his balance in her stead)
shakes his feathers, looks ahead
then tries his flapping wings with pluck (pluck has already been used in S1 - Perhaps:
then flies with swaying force and luck )

to join his fellows who've been struck
by warming waters strewn with bread
so quickly.

Posted by: JustDaniel Mar 21 07, 15:38

Posted by: JustDaniel Mar 21 07, 15:40

Posted by: JustDaniel Mar 21 07, 15:42

Posted by: JustDaniel Mar 21 07, 15:58

Hello Daniel.

I enjoyed your Rondeau but have noted a deviation from the form's rhyme scheme (in S3 below). I imagined the eagles soaring, him trying to catch up and also read this as a metaphor of a person who feels they somwhow didn't fit in, stumbles and tries again in another place (or with another group) with confidence gained.

[ Thank you, Lori. You're not far off with the metaphor... but I actually wrote this as an honor to another writer who was experimenting with rondeau, maybe for the first time and struggled at the beginning, nearly giving up. I nudged her a bit and tried to get her to do it again, and the next attempt she made showed the beauty and grace of other things that I'd recently read of hers, so that she was now infusing that into rondeau. I just kind of felt like standing back and watching her soar.

The reality is, however, that each of us has limitations, and I have come to know my own. It's been very difficult for me to accept them, but I'm facing the reality that there are a whole lot of things that I just cannot do that others do in our writing world that provide depth and breadth to their writing. I can only do what I can do... so I write duck sonnets instead of eagle sonnets. One does best what one can do best. ]

Cheers ~Cleo

So quickly has lone eagle spread
her wings to glide beyond his head
and leave behind this waddling duck
who'd quacked when she had lost her pluck
here molting... helped her leave her bed.
[b]Great opening! [ Thank you! ]

He flaps his wings in honor, sheds
a tear of joy... but where he treads
e'en webbed feet slip upon its muck
so quickly.
(I also feel a bump in an otherwise very smooth rhythm in L3 above – not sure if you mean ‘even’ but it and ‘upon’ are not as smooth to my ear. Perhaps something like:
even webbed feet do slip in muck )
[ Obviously, I need to give this some more thought. Thanks for the heads up. ]

He gains his balance; now he's steady, (You’ve got the wrong rhyme scheme here, it should rhyme with ‘spread’. Perhaps:
He gains his balance; she has fled…
OR
He gains his balance in her stead)
[ I think you'll find that the rhyme falls on the place where the ear hears the rhyme, and I purposely varied the expectation here. In the reading of this out loud, I don't think you'd hear even a little stumble ? ]
shakes his feathers, looks ahead
then tries his flapping wings with pluck (pluck has already been used in S1 - Perhaps:
then flies with swaying force and luck )
[ Sheesh, I hadn't even noticed that. I have done that several times lately! ]

to join his fellows who've been struck
by warming waters strewn with bread
so quickly.

Posted by: Cathy Mar 22 07, 09:02

Hi Daniel,

Sorry I didn't get back to this one. My son just recently left for the military and those of us left behind have been picking up the slack when it comes to chores so I've been a bit busier than usual and my mind not quite where it should be. On to the poem...

So quickly has lone eagle spread
her wings to glide beyond his head
and leave behind this waddling duck
who'd quacked when she had lost her pluck
here molting... helped her leave her bed.

'by molting' or 'in molting' maybe? I find the rhythm and rhyme quite pleasant in this first verse. *smiles*

He flaps his wings in honor, sheds
a tear of joy... but where he treads
e'en webbed feet slip upon its muck
so quickly.

Line 3 doesn't read as smoothly as the rest of the poem. What about 'his webbed feet slip upon slick muck' or some such. Adding 'slick' in place of 'the' enhances the description and alliteration.

He gains his balance; now he's steady,
shakes his feathers, looks ahead
then tries his flapping wings with pluck
to join his fellows who've been struck
by warming waters strewn with bread
so quickly.

You have veered from your rhyme scheme in line one. Maybe... 'He gains his balance; now instead...'. You've already used 'pluck', did you mean to use it again? What about... 'then tries his flapping wings with luck...'? Just some thoughts for you to consider. Use or lose as you see fit. LOL

I enjoyed the read~
Cat

Posted by: jgdittier Mar 22 07, 11:08

Dear Daniel,
You are as inventive as anyone I read and so when you write
something I wouldn't, I decide it's likely to be me who is missing the
trick. Since you mentioned it, the "steady", carrying the y over into the
next line is a ploy I'd not even think of. Enjambment is a field I've not mastered.
In fact, whenever I choose to use it, I find a second muse appears and they
fight over it. My regular muse prefers rhyming couplets and word
choices/punctuation that assign 4's to end rhymes (Timothy Steele).
I realize real poetry holds emjambment high but then I write light verse
and with the rondeau am at my best/worst in trying to write sing-song.
I found the pronouns of interest too as the eagle is a she and the duck a he.
Cheers, Ron jgd