CHAI WITH GLEN

These poems are for you

Writing is exclusively human.  Not surprising, the flip side of that claim is we, alone, read. Birds sing, but can’t (to the man) remember the words to their songs!  Man has always felt the need to express himself (herself).  Cave Art was the start of all that.  A riff on that thesis is that writing continues to evolve and one outgrowth of that is the evolution of Poetry. I am too modest to claim (beware of anyone who starts a sentence like that) any expertise but feel the need to offer a modest explanation of the purpose of this blog.

It is to write poems for you. 

Poetry comes in many flavors but in this blog, you will find four categories: Free Verse, Haiku, Limericks and Glenlets, which are defined below.

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FREE VERSE POETRY is simply prose with a nose for rhythm and rhyme. No holds barred, it’s not hard, anyone can do it. The rules for Limericks and Haiku, however, can nail you down and spin your head around. I include the following in case you wonder why these two forms remain so constrained.

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HAIKU is an inheritance from Japan. Originally, it typically consisted of references to some aspect of the natural world.  More recently, it has retained the rigid format, but now mirrors many aspects of our lives.

Here is one of the older Haiku much revered by The Japanese by Katsushika Hokusai.

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      Poppies

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then

   A poppy blooms

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The rules for Haiku are: It must consist of three lines with line one made up of five syllables, line two seven syllables, and line three, five syllables. 

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LIMERICKS apparently come from an area familiar to most of us, Ireland, home of a village named Limerick. These rules, much like the Irish themselves, (I’m one of them) are rigid and complex.  I won’t bore you with the details, but they consist of only five lines with restrictions regarding rhymes within lines, which are different line to line!

Probably the most famous limerick is as follows: Authorship still evolving.

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 There was a man from Nantucket

 Who kept his cash in a bucket

 He had a daughter named Nan

 She ran away with a man

 As for the bucket Nantucket

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GLENLETS  I am taking the unwarranted liberty, for this blog only, of defining a new poem form which I am calling Glenlets.  They are short verses of fewer than eight lines that may, or may not, rhyme. Example:

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            The Wren

When I was a boy, less than ten

I had a friend, it was a Wren

In rainy weather, we flew away

             Together

I hope you enjoy MY poetry.  I intend to add two new poems weekly.  They will be posted on Fridays, which I am, for this purpose, call CHAI-DAYS.  Would appreciate your telling friends and acquaintances (as well as In-law)s about them if you like them, but if there is something that would improve the blog please let me know.

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H. (for Handsome) Glen Haney

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