Thread: Shabby Tigers prowl their pentameters

I have been reading, various books
Of J, B Priestly, Roman history,
prosody and such. As a pensioner
I Travel free on the bus, for in all
conscience my sight is not up to much.
But I digress.

Bus journeys can be of
considerable duration and afford
an opportunity for meditation.
Or to read.

Specialist Oxfam bookshops exist
in Hastings and Herne hill. I and their shelves
Know each other well. The books are slightly
dated, as am I.

Martin, I just had time to appreciate your comment, thank you, then the whole thread was deleted in error, or over exuberance

If any one else posted I am sorry,I did not see that.

Yes, my foolish over exuberance Martin and Syren. My apologies to you both and especially to Olly.


I love the form and the rhymes of this one, Olly. I always suspected that under all that oh so proper exterior, a tiger lurks.

Olly, first you surprise me with a critique then you post your own which I love. Now, I don't mean to boss a Moderator around but you must visit more often!

I had to look up "pentameters". We, here, in America say "retiree" unlike you in the UK and those in Australia. So with that out of the way, I could attend to your poem.

You have a subtle wit evidenced with:

I Travel free on the bus, for in all
conscience my sight is not up to much.

and

I and their shelves
Know each other well, The books are slightly
Dated, as am I.

I've always gone for British wit. Churchill, Noel Coward and Lord Chesterfield for example.

“Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.”

Your poem is perfectly compact yet took me on a long ride! Laurie

No worries Gumby

I just had praise mate, not much else... save a small nit about the capitalization - wasn't a big deal - just lending you a thought. Great write, hope to read more soon.

Cheers,

//Sy

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much." These things happen to all of us, no worries Gumby, and thank you for the kind comments.

Thank you Laurie, pentameters was a sort of pun, tigers usually prowl perimeters. But as I tried to write it in blank verse, pentameters ...

I Travel free on the bus, for in all
conscience my sight is not up to much.
But I digress.

I used to drive a lot, several times the normal annual mileage, and held an advanced driver's certificate, I stopped before my sight was worse than the legal limit
it scared me not being fully in control.

I am afraid I am not a prolific writer of poetry, sometimes the mood takes me, I agree I should come and crit here more, could you just stick an extra seven or eight hours on the day and add forty years to my life please?

Thank you Syren, the capitalisation is a bit varied isn't it? Could do better, must check these things more carefully.

Olly if this is what you create 'when the mood takes you' then I take my hat off to you. I have to spend hours coming up with something with this callibre. I love the flow of the piece and the rhyme is brilliant, I always admire anyone who can rhyme as I am utterly useless at it, even when using a rhyming dictionary. I also love the conversational tone to the poem, fantastic.

I'm on board with everyone else's praise. I particularly love the last stanza.

I'm wondering though if you need that first comma.

NikkiR, I feel the path to rhyme may start with alliteration, It is certainly something to do with playing and having fun with words rather than slaving over a dictionary trying to get it right. Though I do posses dictionaries, of various sorts, the rhyming one I find gets used more for inspiration than for assisting a work already in progress. The conversational tone probably comes from Wordsworth, I had just previously been reading;
This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school;
And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!

They are not directly related, but these things rub off. Have you tried reading Wilfred Owen who uses pararhyme, now that's clever.

Thank you Squalid, I'm glad you liked that last bit, I wondered if 'the books are somewhat dated, as am I.' was not overly self-indulgent of me.
Capitalisation and punctuation, the nitty gritty that is so often my downfall. In this case however I will stand by it, not strictly necessary maybe, but it serves to emphasise the mid-line pause.

Of course, and it's only my opinion on this but maybe a dash might help emphesize the pause without the confusion between the two dependent clauses in your sentence.

Got you, I've taken out the one after 'prosody', does that make better sense?

Actually I think that comma was correct. It's just the first one which is awkward since it's splitting a dependent clause and an independnt clause.