"Where Drought Once Loomed" by Lauren McBride

"Break in the Plain" Watercolor on Paper
By J. Artemus Gordon

Where Drought Once Loomed

Grey clouds gathering gloom - lightning flashing.

Sky lashing down rain, then BOOM.

Crops are spared a dusty doom.

--Lauren McBride

Poet's Notes: I learned about englyn penfyr poetry from Steve and wanted to choose a topic that wasn't limiting (like weather, which became a thunderstorm) and use words that had many rhymes (sky, crash, boom) to try to fit meaning into lines of specific syllable count with primary and secondary rhyme schemes. The hardest part for me was to break from traditional rhyme schemes that kept coming to mind at first.

Editor's Note:  An englyn penfyr of mine and a link to information about this fun but challenging form may be found here http://www.songsoferetz.com/2017/07/an-independence-day-poem-by-editor.html.

"Shooting Fish" by Lauren McBride

Shooting Fish

Lauren McBride

When the wind is calm, I like to look

in the glassy pools of Shady Brook.

I'll cast no fly to the fish gliding by,

caught with my camera, not a hook.

Poet's Notes: My father was an avid fisherman. I used to fish with him when I was little. Then I began to enjoy watching fish swim around in the water and felt less inclined to catch them on a pointy hook. Years later and miles away, I started snapping pictures of various fish so I could ask my dad what kind each was.

Somehow, fish photos became the subject of this poem using a form new to me, the gwawdodyn, which I first saw posted on Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides Blog in 2013. Welsh in origin, I became eager to try this form after the Editor introduced me to another Welsh form, the englyn penfyr.  An example of this form may be found here http://www.songsoferetz.com/search?q=englyn+penfyr.

The gwawdodyn is composed of quatrains that require nine syllables per line and hard rhymes for lines 1, 2, and 4. Line 3 must have ten syllables and a different internal rhyme. I started by picking words with lots of rhymes like: fish, fin, tail, cast, glass, but nothing worked until I thought of "hook" then "brook" and "look," and my poem took shape instantly.

An Independence Day Poem by the Editor

Fifty-six Brave Men

The Founders composed and signed--a letter.

The fetters that so maligned

shattered freeing soul and mind.

Poet's/Editor's Notes:  If there is one characteristic of America that makes her great it is adherence to her traditional motto:  e pluribus unum (out of many--one).  America takes the best aspects of every culture and makes them her own, usually with improvements.  Accordingly, I feel perfectly justified in presenting a foreign poetry form in honor of the 241st birthday of these United States.

The englyn penfyr was introduced to me yesterday by a Friend of Eretz.  It is a Welsh poetry form that dates back at least as far as the 9th century.  For more information on this beautiful and lyrical ancient form of poetry, see http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/forums/topic/987-1-englyn-penfyr-or-short-ended-englyn-in-the-old-style/.

Steven Wittenberg Gordon, Editor