I was mucking about on Google the other day, and one thing led to another, and I wound up, of all places, at http://www.gedichten.nl . . . which is to say, "poetry.n(ether)l(ands)." Now, about the only Dutch words I know are Van . . . and Halen, but I was feeling game, and so I dove right in, using Google Language Tools to sort things out as I went. And I made an interesting discovery. Our Dutch cousins have invented a clever new verse form, and apparently it's all the rage in Holland.

Introducing . . .



If you know a little German, you've probably already guessed: a snelsonnet is a "quicksonnet," a truncated six-line form that does away with two quatrains, but still preserves the thesis-antithesis-(synthesis) structure of the traditional sonnet by observing a rigorous turn between quatrain and couplet. It is admirably suited to epigram and satire, as gedichten.nl's enormous archive of examples written "over de acualiteit" ("on the news") will attest. But I think it could be turned to most any subject or mood. Light or lapidary, it demands severe economy of expression, and that's always a spur to creativity in the willing poet.

Folks, this a great opportunity for us. I've Googled the word, using the Advanced Search function to limit results exclusively to pages in English. Nada. (Or should I say, niets?) There isn't a single reference to the snelsonnet, in English, on the entire World Wide Web. But we can change that. Let the English snelsonnet begin!

* * *

For your reference, here is my translation of the Dutch Wikipedia page, "Snelsonnet." I apologize in advance to anyone who may find the second of the sample poems offensive in any way. I almost didn't translate it, but I suspect that the word "neger" is rather less strong in Dutch than its most obvious English cognate (though clearly it is offensive enough; hence the poem). As for "Yehoodies," the Dutch word is jodenkoeken, literally "Jews-cookies." Apparently it’s a legit word in Dutch; there’s even a Wikipedia article about the treat ( here )--as there is, for that matter, about Negerzoenen ( here ). And who am I to censor the Poet Laureate of Holland?

Anyway, in case anyone thinks I'm making things up, I am including word-for-word translations of the two poems. I would eventually like to post the whole text to Wikipedia in English, so if anyone has strong feelings about the translations, you can let me know . . . though if that becomes a major focus here, we may be better off splitting the thread to Translation.

To be honest, though, I'd much rather post original English samples to Wikipedia (with permission, of course!). So poets . . . get crackin'! Snel!


* * *

Translated from http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snelsonnet :

Snelsonnet

The snelsonnet ("quick sonnet") is a relatively new verse form, first developed in Holland. The name, and the formal criteria that a snelsonnet must satisfy, were first conceived by Paul Vinken of Amsterdam. However, the sudden, and ever-growing boom in snelsonnet composition in the early years of the 21st century is perhaps most attributable to the fact that Driek van Wissen, who became Poet Laureate of Holland in 2005, has made outstanding use of the form in his work.

Formal Criteria

To be a snelsonnet, a poem must satisfy the following criteria:
* It always consists of a quatrain (four lines) followed by a couplet (two lines)
* Metrically, it uses iambic pentameter (five "feet" of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables per line)
* The quatrain uses an "envelope" (A-B-B-A) rhyme scheme
* The lines of the couplet rhyme with each other (C-C), but never with either of the rhymes used in the quatrain
* There is a "fall" or "turn" after the end of the quatrain, such that the couplet is connected to the quatrain in an oblique or "relativized" way.

Examples

Two examples of snelsonnets on current topics from the hand of the Poet Laureate; the first on the possible imminent extinction of the polar bear, dated 7 May, 2006:

To Thaw and to Thaw

It’s looking bad for poor old polar bear:
for if the ice cap at the North Pole thaws
he’ll have no place to place his giant paws--
no ice, no floes, no cool repose, nowhere.

The best thing to be done, I say, is seize him,
that last surviving polar bear--then freeze him.

and this from 23 March 2006, on the news that the maker of "Negrokisses" (a chocolate-covered marshmallow candy) was going to change the name on its product packaging to the more politically correct "Kisses":

The Last Kiss

Is negro kissing negress such a sin?
So blackened here that now it should appear
that Negrokisses soon must disappear
from Holland’s shelves, though sweet and white within?

Well so it is, and I must seek new goodies;
but lucky me, look here, I’ve found Yehoodies!

* * *

Literal, line-by-line translations of van Wissen poems:

Dooien en dooien
to thaw and to thaw

Het is met onze ijsbeer slecht gesteld:
it is with our icebear bad become

De ondergang schijnt ook hem te bedreigen
the downfall appears also him to threaten

Daar hij geen poot meer aan de grond kan krijgen
for he no foot more on the ground can place

Wanneer de ijskap van de Noordpool smelt.
when the icecap of the North Pole melts.

Het beste is om er maar voor te kiezen
the best is about him* rather for* to choose (ervoor = "for him"; voor is used as a postposition here)

De allerlaatste ijsbeer in te vriezen.
the very-last icebear in* to freeze* (invriezen = "to freeze in," i.e., "refrigerate")

*

De laatste zoen
the last kiss

De zoen van negers en van negerinnen
the kiss of negroes and of negresses

Is hier zo zwart gemaakt dat naar het schijnt
is here so black become that soon it seems

De negerzoen uit Nederland verdwijnt
the Negrokiss out [of] Netherlands disappears

Al is zo’n zoen wel lekker wit van binnen.
though [it] is such a kiss, as sweet [as] white from [with]in.

Dus moet ik maar iets anders lekkers zoeken.
thus must I rather something other sweet [to] seek

Gelukkig viel mijn oog op jodenkoeken.
luckily fell my eye on Jews-cookies.


Editing back, 2 August: Fixed the broken link to Dutch Wikipedia. My apologies to anyone who sought and did not find. The page really does exist . . . and now the link works too!




[This message has been edited by Stephen Collington (edited August 02, 2008).]

Summer Birthdays

I caught two butterflies, one for each niece,
then spread and blocked and dried and mounted them,
Swallow-tail and Monarch, jewel and gem,
locked in perfection, permanent, at peace.

Of net and jar, the nieces need not know,
nor of the others, flawed, that I let go.

Is this the sort of thing?

Keep the Faith

We hurl the homosexuals from cliffs,
Being enjoined to do so by religion.
Sch wanton decadence is not our pigeon;
Our souls are scoured of maybes and what ifs.

The Word is firm and clear and unambiguous;
Knowing and doing at every point contiguous.


[This message has been edited by John Whitworth (edited July 31, 2008).]

John, that was . . . snel.

Yours is just outrageous, John. I love it, even the faux-German "sch." I'm working on my snel, Steve C. First, I have to finish reading the instructions.

Steve C, knowing your love for wordplay, this butterfly one is a doozy. I'm thinking of Nabokov. I'm thinking I need to go into therapy after reading this one. Strong stuff!

In regard to that butterfly poem, is that what you'd call an UN-fatal flaw?

Delivery

She rolls her big brown boxes down the aisle,
blue uniform emblazoned with FedEx,
and tells me frankly with her eyes that sex
with women such as me is just her style.

A look like this is news in Arkansas.
Caw-caw, caw-caw, caw-caw, caw-caw, caw-caw.

John: Hah! You're a sly one. But now that I've read your comments on the "Poetry Magazine Submission" thread on GT--about chopping up and recycling you poems--well, it all becomes clear. I even Googled a bit to be sure. And I must say, I admire your restraint: you could have posted two!

Anyway, to answer your question, yes indeed, I think that's very much along the right lines. You've been writing snelsonnet stanzas avant le mot. I hope you'll come back and share more.

Mary: Ah, Starling . . . uhhh, I mean, Darling -- sometimes a cigar really is only a cigar. (See the trouble a reputation for punning will get you in! The nieces would not be impressed.) I'm looking forward to reading your first snel.

Annie: A saving glitch?

Keep 'em coming, folks!


p.s. Mary, we cross posted. Is that crowing I hear? Ah, yes . . . birds of a feather. The title is a wonderful fit.



[This message has been edited by Stephen Collington (edited August 01, 2008).]

The price of gasoline has gone berserk
I won’t be driving my car anymore
The next time that I’m heading out the door
You’ll see me pedaling my way to work.

I blame those nasty Arabs for my plight—
Forgiving Royal Dutch Shell who have the right.

Two would have been greedy. I must say it's just as well the magazine editors over here are too posh and idle to go a-googling. But it wasn't just Pope. Marlowe stole great lumps of Spenser. I think it was Eliot who pointed it out. I've just been working on a poem called 'Fatso in the Red Suit'. Great title, huh? I pinched it from Matthew Sweeney.

Google this one if you can.

News Headlines

Kent dinner ladies set to get the chop,
Wallasey man escapes by a hare’s breath,
Seventeen times Cassandra cheated death,
Posh outburst catches hubby on the hop,
Judge opts for hanging on a one-off basis,
Prince William pops the question in his braces.


[This message has been edited by John Whitworth (edited August 01, 2008).]

U.S. Democracy

Elections here are always fun and games,
real issues getting very little press.
A lot is made of how contenders dress
and rumors of their secret life with dames.

So when our leader’s failures are detailed,
it’s really the electorate who’ve failed.



[This message has been edited by Mary Moore (edited August 01, 2008).]

A Dissenting Voice

There is a certain grace to fourteen lines;
sufficient space to sketch a story, turn
it all about, extract a truth, and earn
some credit for the way it intertwines.

Snelsonnetry, however, dumbs things down,
and caters to man's ancient urge to clown.


The Hot New Designer's Worst Nightmare

I wonder what would happen if I'm inned;
named as a closet straight, unqueer, not gay,
who never meant the things I always say -
shamed by some sleazoid tabloid bag of wind.

And then, of course, the ultimate attack:
I hear, my dear, that he’s not even black!




[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited August 01, 2008).]

Proportion

What if my feet, though average in size
should look like plates beneath my tiny frame?
Ought I wear skirts to hide my clownish shame
or exercise to gain more powerful thighs?

Perhaps long shoes with daggers in their tips
will emphasise the swagger of my hips.

_______
Rotation

While walking with her dog a woman saw
a cat drive past in a Mercedes Benz.
The dog gave chase. It wanted to be friends
but fell beneath its wheels and chased no more.

The woman claimed insurance from the cat
and bought a wheel to exercise her rat.


_____

Salvation

What price the world when blue skies are no more?
When man-made mist casts shadow on the sun,
to modify the damage we have done.
Will any song-bird even out the score?

They say white skies are all we can expect
once memories of sunshine have been wrecked.



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 02, 2008).]

Bob and Me

Cows are so moony, don't you sometimes think?—
That's what I said to Bob, and he said, "Bud,
It comes from too much chewing of the cud."
Bob wasn't kidding—didn't even blink.

Just then the cow beside us let off gas.
Bob and me laughed, and I said, "Pass the grass."

Hi Folks,

I'm lovin' it. The Dutch monopoly on the snelsonnet is no more! (Kind of you, though, Roy, calling them Royal and all. Something in the name, maybe?)

John: Prince William in "braces"? In NA, the default assumption would be braces on teeth . . . but I'm guessing you mean what we could call "suspenders" here. Either way . . . disturbing image!!!

Mary: Personally, I blame it all on Wolf Blitzer. Which, come to think of it, is an interesting rhyme. Hmm . . .

Michael: I was hoping that you'd weigh in here! For what it's worth, "A Dissenting Voice" would be my first candidate for WikiP exposure as representative of the newly born English snelsonnet. We probably should take a vote when we've got a collection built up here, but anyway, here's to nominating. As for your designer . . . well yes, Darling, but I wonder if you couldn't work in the thought that he isn't even the new black.

Janet: It's a generational thing, but I grew up listening to The Smiths (you can enjoy them here ). So I start into your first poem, and immediately I can hear Morrissey singing

Everyday, you must say
oh, how do I feel about my shoes?
They make me awkward and plain . . .

and you have my COMPLETE sympathy. (That is, your narrator does. Ahem.) By the way, there's a wonderful Asimov (? I think) story about children on another planet who grow up never seeing the sun. There's one child in the class who was born on Earth, and naturally, she's the odd one out: she remembers things like blue skies and sunshine, and she's forever going on about them. One day, in a freak of weather, the clouds part, and the sun shines through. And so what do other children do? They lock her in a closet, until the rain starts again. Absolutely devastating story. I wish I could remember the title.

Mike: Moo!

Keep 'em coming folks. This is great stuff.

Steve C.


Editing back: Janet, what would we do without Google? It's Bradbury, not Asimov, the story is called "All Summer in a Day," and it's available to read online as a Word Doc here .



[This message has been edited by Stephen Collington (edited August 02, 2008).]

These were all headlines, more or less. Prince William's braces were on his trousers. Suspenders hold your socks up.

Stephen,
I don't want to frighten you but the "Boffins" have seriously had this up their sleeves for some time. They say we aren't ready for it yet but if Global Warming gets out of hand they can fine tune the system with a touch of perpetual cloud which will reflect back the heat and save plants etc. on earth. The "only disadvantage" will be that blue skies will disappear forever. "They" say this will cause a great deal of depression and therefore is something to be avoided unless it becomes essential.

Cheers.

I once read a great deal of Bradbury.
Janet

The Low Country

What business have you Netherlanders whittling
the sonnet down? I will not see it wrecked
by low types from Nijmegen or Utrecht!
It doesn’t need your Amsterdam belittling!

And don’t read snels aloud; these short-stack frolickings,
like all your lingo, sound like "a lot of bollockings"!
...
...

Dutchifying

I scanned my sonnets, hoping to convert
this one or that to stump proportions, snel.
To me such drastic cutting seems like hell:
Ten lines are “curtal”; six are more like curt.

Since when is two point three times six too much, man?
No way six trumps fourteen, or I’m a Dutchman.
...
...

Decapitation

Back when I sometimes Deep End dunked a sonnet
a Tim or Alan often would suggest
I cut the octave, keep the nether best,
the last six lines. I’d say, “I’ll ponder on it.”

In truth I was — though this I left unsaid —
too squeamish to cut off a sonnet’s head.




[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited August 02, 2008).]

Henry, they're brilliant ;)

Dissenters Revisited

Are they the ones whose narcissistic wit
disdains the compass of a mere six lines?
whose scintillating brilliance only shines
when grander architecture beckons it?

They'd turn Pope’s epigram “Whose dog are you?”
from fifteen words to, say, a hundred two.

.

edited for typo



[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited August 02, 2008).]

Dissension Rides Again

No man told Pope the form that he must use,
defined the rhyme scheme, length, and meter too,
left filling in the blanks for him to do -
Nope! Pope and Pope alone amused his Muse.

The less the poem gets, the more you must
forget the structure strictures; go with trust.

The Chateau of M. Quasimodo

The portraits on the walls depict
my ancestors and their demise,
here, cousin Anatole is kicked
as peasants gouge out both his eyes.

And here, a basket case is seen--
'Papa Greets Madame Guillotine'.

I cheat though, this is culled from a longer piece.

Edited to say that I agree with M. Cantor, this form is really too easy



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited August 02, 2008).]

How’s That Again?

Nothing except the fashion of the age.
Chaucer of course had used the form before,
and Denham* and Dryden had refined the ore,
making heroic couplets all the rage.

No Pound or Eliot to dictate rules,
the classics and his forebears shaped his tools.

..

*O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
<FONT >..My great example, as it is my theme!
..Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
..Strong without rage, without o’erflowing, full.

........—Sir John Denham, from Cooper Hill (1642),
..........on comparing his verse to the River Thames</FONT s>

The Snot Sonnet

Is snot a sonnet, the turn will grate
it’s at L4, I say you blew it.
It always must be at L8--
that’s the way us purists do it.

Leave it to the Dutch to find
A form that doesn’t tax the mind.



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited August 03, 2008).]

The Netherlands are where they play with style
upon old instruments they tend with care.
Old forms fare better there than anywhere,
played gravely with an enigmatic smile.

Snelsonnets give them energy to write
in language which gives most of us a fright.

Nascetur ridiculus mus, or The Italics Weigh In

For Petrarch's sake, no more! alleviate
the pain you cause us with your clashing klaxons,
you BEEPing Dutch and BEEPing Anglo-Saxons!
Fourteen? è troppo! Please, abbreviate!

And so was born this mongrel form, this sham,
this cross of worsted sire and hamster dam.

Squirrel Madness

The car slows but the squirrel splats the street.
It's dodged far faster cars and wasn't hit.
Now that some heartbreak has come over it,
It wonders why it thought that life was sweet.

You might see some of these pause when they are
With sadness overwhelmed and seek a car.

Oh Stephen! Really !;)

"worsted sire and hamster dam."

The form’s too easy, dumbs things down, you say? What of the sonnet? The English golden age saw thousands of them, hundreds read today--clowning, loving, mourning upon the page. Romantics too produced them by the score, Millay alone one hundred seventy-six, a hundred times that number by Merrill Moore.* Cummings wrote dozens, for all his graphic tricks. Each day more thousands flood the internet, many met with cheers (and some with booing), and not a hint of its abating yet. The form’s too easy, dumbed down, not worth doing? A form’s as good as any writer makes it, as bad as any hack who undertakes it.

*Moore taught himself shorthand so he could write down the sonnets he composed while walking between classes; he had written some nine thousand by age 25, and his “autobiography,” M, is a sequence of a thousand sonnets.
___

P.S.: As the English sonnet soon modified the Italian, so the Irish snelsonnet (ABAB CC) apparently modifies the Dutch. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

OK Let's change the form again.

The War Effort

A bit of semi-smut
Is chalked up on a wall:
Your Churchill knows fuck nothing but
Our Fuhrer knows FUCK ALL.

Of course we’ll win. No doubt. No fuss.
The very language fights for us.

That has got to be the pun of the century. (Let's include the 1900s, and it still is.)

Your brilliance blinds me.

Ah yes, the form is evolving. I too wondered how long it would take before someone rebelled and gave us the Shakespearean snelsonnet. But Jim has taken things a step further and got us down to tet (and now, with John W.'s latest, tri). At this rate, we'll be back talking baby-talk before we know it:

Gay Adoption

In-
de-
ci-
sion.

Pa-
pa?

(Mary M.: I'm looking forward to the grrls' version!) Anyway, here's my new challenge. I'm upping the ante: if anyone can give us a one-worder (six syllables!) complete with correct "continental" rhyme scheme (think ABBA!) and convincing turn at the couplet, I will post video footage of me eating the hat of your choice. That smack! you just heard was the gauntlet hitting the floor.

*

Frank: Funny you should go that route. When I was brainstorming ideas for my first snel, I also contemplated the fate of an unlucky four-footed friend. I even wrote a first line,

You're strewn across the road now, guts and glory,

with the intention of following up with rabbit, habit and story. (I didn't get as far ahead in my plans as the couplet. No idea how I'd have ended it.) But then I wound up going for butterflies instead. Anyway, interesting coincidence, that. Something in the form, perhaps, that suggests road kill?

Janet: :-&thorn;

Jan: My, what curiously musical prose you write! (Merril Moore sounds like a perfectly terrifying individual.) By the way, I agree completely.

John: I am reminded of Kenneth Mars as Franz Liebkind in the original film of The Producers, raving about the injustice of it all: "Not many people know this, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer . . . He had more hair than Churchill, he told funnier jokes than Churchill, and he could dance the PANTS off of Churchill! CHRRRRchill!"

Hey, whaddaya know. Seek and ye shall find:

The Magic of Youtube

(The Churchill soliloquy starts about 7:30 if you want to skip ahead. Enjoy.)

Janice: Damn, now I feel bad. It's a good thing you can touch type, though, eh? (Glad you liked it.)

Keep 'em coming folks!

Steve C.

p.s. Yes, I know. Some of you might complain that "in- and -sion" is slant rhyme. But it ain't. Honest Injun.

Not quite up to your challenge, John, but the AAAA rhyme should give bonus points:

A
Ra-
sta-
fa-

ri
high

Duncan

"Jan: My, what curiously musical prose you write! (Merril Moore sounds like a perfectly terrifying individual.) By the way, I agree completely."

Thanks, Stephen. Just compensating for my unmusical verse? http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

At his best Moore is quite good and interestingly flexible with the form. He taught himself shorthand so he could write more sonnets between classes and <u>labs</u>, attended Vanderbilt with Ransom and R. P. Warren, was a member of the Fugitive circle, went on to pick up an M.D., and had a career as a psychiatrist (which furnished much of the material for his sonnets). I also understated his output, which was actually about 50,000 sonnets; he died at 54.
___

The limerick’s also too easy. What fun is there reading some wheezy ridiculous puns about abbots and nuns? I’d rather be playing parcheesi.

Yet somehow they keep being written by scribblers who, suddenly bitten by love of the sport (though it isn’t their forte), offer verse with no substance nor wit in.

And sometimes a classic arises that truly delights and surprises. The lass from Nantucket sought humor and struck it. Do likewise is what I advises.

A limerick's easy to write, and it tends to get read with delight. All those abbots and nuns are quite proud of their sons, and their daughters, who turned out all right.

Stephen Collington wrote:
Magical Senior Moment

Ab
ra
ca
dab...

less
ness

[ abracadablessness, n (conjurers' argot): the state of being confused on stage, as when suddenly losing the thread of the trick, forgetting one's patter or magic phrase, etc. ]

Top-hat, please -- the kind rabbits used to be pulled from. ;-Q



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited August 05, 2008).]

Oh, now you're taking me aliterally. . . . Will a bowler do?

<object width="425" height="344">

</param>

</param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-sShWty0IX8&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Henry, it's brilliant. But it needs a title. "The Magic Goes Away." Something.

Anyway, one good turn deserves another:



We are approaching a new realm of achievement in snelling here. But I'm not sure we're quite there yet. There's still the four-word sonnet to be conquered. And heck, why stop there? Go for three.

Steve C.

All right Stephen, I've now given it a title: Magical Senior Moment.

It occurred to me you might complain that abracadablessness is too obscure a word, one hard to find in dictionaries, and on that ground decline to provide the promised tophatophagous entertainment. But obviously I needn't have doubted you. The video is there for all to see. I suppose you're aware that you look a lot like Stan Laurel?