Jan's Master Class--Quatrain
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:31 am
A quatrain is a poem, or a stanza of a poem, consisting of 4 lines. As with the haiku we studied last week, I’m going to use the most basic examples of quatrains, and encourage you who are more advanced poets to seek out the more advanced and literary ones.
Quatrains should rhyme, but you can pick from any of several rhyme schemes. I’ll give a few examples from my poetry collection to illustrate some possibilities.
Here’s an (abcb) poem:
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play
~Sarah N. Cleghorn
And here’s one that’s (aabb), by the humorist Willard Espy:
The man of thoughts profound resents
Us silly, superficial gents.
We do not care to hang around
The man who thinks his thoughts profound.
Now for an (abab) quatrain:
When late I attempted your pity to move,
What made you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But why did you kick me downstairs?
~Isaac Bickerstaff
And finally, an (abba) one:
In spring, a breeze blows from the west;
A breath as gentle as a sigh;
And with it, soft tears from the sky;
Relief at passing winter's test.
~Kevin McKinney
Notice that all of these are complete poems, mostly with a little “punch” at the end.
Like the haiku, 4-line quatrains are too short for Challenge entries, but there are several reasons for mastering the form:
1. It will give you a chance to practice the skills of rhyme and meter. If you’re not sure that your quatrain has a consistent meter, try counting the syllables in each line, and see if there’s a pattern. Then take it one step further, and see if there’s a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Another way of making sure you’ve got the meter down pat is to select a four-line hymn (like “Amazing Grace” or “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow”) and to write a poem that can be sung to that tune.
2. As I mentioned above, many longer poems are made up of a series of quatrains. So if you can write one quatrain with satisfying rhyme and meter, you should be able to write a longer poem.
3. It’s a way to practice finding just the right word: in such a short form, you don’t want to have awkward or forced word constructions. You’ve got to make your point quickly and well.
4. Advanced poets—pick a literary term (metaphor, alliteration, imagery, irony…) and work on working it into a quatrain.
In last week’s lesson, I suggested that you might use haiku in the Challenge by writing them in a series (and someone did that for the last topic!), by having a character read one or write one, or by using a haiku to start or finish a devotional. You could do all of those same things with a quatrain. Can you think of other ways that a quatrain could be incorporated into a Writing Challenge entry?
Homework: Write a quatrain.
That’s easy enough, so I’d also encourage you to add your own comments, observations, questions, favorite quatrains from literature or from your previous writings…
It’s always my intention to respond to every post…I’ll try to get to yours as soon as possible!
Quatrains should rhyme, but you can pick from any of several rhyme schemes. I’ll give a few examples from my poetry collection to illustrate some possibilities.
Here’s an (abcb) poem:
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play
~Sarah N. Cleghorn
And here’s one that’s (aabb), by the humorist Willard Espy:
The man of thoughts profound resents
Us silly, superficial gents.
We do not care to hang around
The man who thinks his thoughts profound.
Now for an (abab) quatrain:
When late I attempted your pity to move,
What made you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But why did you kick me downstairs?
~Isaac Bickerstaff
And finally, an (abba) one:
In spring, a breeze blows from the west;
A breath as gentle as a sigh;
And with it, soft tears from the sky;
Relief at passing winter's test.
~Kevin McKinney
Notice that all of these are complete poems, mostly with a little “punch” at the end.
Like the haiku, 4-line quatrains are too short for Challenge entries, but there are several reasons for mastering the form:
1. It will give you a chance to practice the skills of rhyme and meter. If you’re not sure that your quatrain has a consistent meter, try counting the syllables in each line, and see if there’s a pattern. Then take it one step further, and see if there’s a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Another way of making sure you’ve got the meter down pat is to select a four-line hymn (like “Amazing Grace” or “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow”) and to write a poem that can be sung to that tune.
2. As I mentioned above, many longer poems are made up of a series of quatrains. So if you can write one quatrain with satisfying rhyme and meter, you should be able to write a longer poem.
3. It’s a way to practice finding just the right word: in such a short form, you don’t want to have awkward or forced word constructions. You’ve got to make your point quickly and well.
4. Advanced poets—pick a literary term (metaphor, alliteration, imagery, irony…) and work on working it into a quatrain.
In last week’s lesson, I suggested that you might use haiku in the Challenge by writing them in a series (and someone did that for the last topic!), by having a character read one or write one, or by using a haiku to start or finish a devotional. You could do all of those same things with a quatrain. Can you think of other ways that a quatrain could be incorporated into a Writing Challenge entry?
Homework: Write a quatrain.
That’s easy enough, so I’d also encourage you to add your own comments, observations, questions, favorite quatrains from literature or from your previous writings…
It’s always my intention to respond to every post…I’ll try to get to yours as soon as possible!