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Chiasms for a rainyday
It's raining and cloudy in NM, and my brain is getting soggy. Would anybody care to write some clever chiasms? Mike Todd wrote this on another board: "We say we have no time to write when our time isn't worth writing about."
Pope was famous for them. Oh, for heaven's sake; I can't find my copy of "Rape of the Lock." I was going to find a good one in IP. Sor Juana used them quite frequently in her sonnets. Keats, of course, has his famous one, and Frost used them, as well. I'm not very clever, but if somebody thinks of a good one, it might inspire me. |
All right, so I started this ridiculous thread before I had to run off and do a million things. Yes, I realize how absurd it is, now. I couldn't think of a good chiasm to save my life.
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If you just give us a few examples from the poets you mentioned, perhaps some of us will try to run with this. But I'm not sure what you are asking for so I'm not sure whether I can do it or not.
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What happened to my post? What, what? Does this site kick you off if you're logged on too long?
I had written an example by Dr. Samuel Johnson: "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." And a couple by Sor Juana from her Hombres Necios: "Or which is more to be blamed-- though both will have cause for chagrin: the woman who sins for money or the man who pays money to sin? So why are you men all so stunned at the thought you're all guilty alike? Either like them for what you've made them or make of them what you can like." They are simply lines that mirror each other and can be clever and funny. They also make language interesting. I put a few in the poem I just posted -- not good ones, perhaps, but some of the lines do mirror each other. |
This may not be relevant to your thread, Jill, but I fell in love with this poem today. It's ghazal influenced.
Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font; The firefly wakens, waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts, in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake. So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me. Alfred Lord Tennyson ~~~~~~ Ok, I just thought of two chiasmus from my own work: The Oak Tree Owl of Owl Creek Cove No one is Mary, Mary is no one Here's someone who invented the Chiastic Sonnet. http://www.johnpratt.com/items/poetry/index.html And here's some help from Dr. Mardy: http://www.drmardy.com/chiasmus/types.shtml |
OK. Here's a Chiastic Sonnet. If it doesn'tmake sense that shows a. how Modernist, or even Post-Modernist, I have become b. the active reader makes his own sense. it was originally inspired by the moreimpanetrable poetry of Peter Porter, God bless him, and who borrowed my Porter book and DIDN'T GIVE IT BACK.
Thou verse thief, pincher of my Porter, No longer steal the name of mate Who sinned the sin he didn't oughter. I curse thee, thee excoriate. That's not the sonnet but it contains some fine chiasms and also some choice archaisms to tie it to another thread. Here is the sonnet. Chiastic Sonnet Just when the doctors dreamed they might be winning A war on several fronts with those diseases That threaten my longevity, the squeeze is Renewed in spades. My letterbox starts grinning. Time to shut up the chateau, tell the servants Just how they can all fuck off. Our hero grew From zero, now he’s fingered for a coshing. I fear it’s time to take in people’s washing, To meditate on memories of you And get a book religion's strict observance. I'm an old tart on tour. I’ve left off binning Brochures again (though past it now, by Jesus) So what do you like? Is it sights or sands or skis? Is The Great Pyramid more than money-spinning? |
Mary, of course it's relevant. Tennyson writes lovely, romantic chiasms.
John, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around yours. If it's chiastic in construct as many biblical passages are, I'm missing it. But then I'm really, really tired right now. |
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Here is a stanza of a poem I recently posted, which has a chiastic rhyme scheme, but two parallel phrases that go against it. **While round the baseball field a fence keeps players in and others from the game, ****a fence called “Being tame” keeps Wilbur near and me from getting tense. Martin |
Here is part of a longer piece just published at Umbrella. It concerns the Polish tradition of constructing and destroying an effigy of Pilate on Good Fridays. It is chiastic in rhyme scheme and line length.
Below, the village boys have stuffed you full of straw and soon, they’ll cheer and take you from the street to church, ’though not to pray. The belfry’s where you’ll go and once you’re there, they’ll curse your name and throw you down, back to the street. Then rooks will drop and perch upon your eye and clack around your shattered jaw. Up here, I’ll watch it all. I’ll see them vie to take what’s left of you and drag it down the riverbank. They’ll rip your body, bit by battered bit, and I’ll rejoice (the perfect hypocrite); and when they’ve tossed each piece to where the last one sank I’ll watch them kneel and cross themselves for Jesu’s sake. |
At least a decade before John Pratt "invented" the "chiastic sonnet," I wrote the following. I know of no prior example of the structure, but am too modest to assume I "invented" it, and assume that one must exist somewhere.
..................In Memory: Basilio C. Molina ........ Ten thousand miles we'd come, and just in time ........ to watch him die--this father to my wife ........ I know so slightly. How strange it is to watch: ........ in the room where the old man lies past hurt ........ children play cards. I have so much to learn. ........ Watching their game, I think hard of the child ........ we left at home so that she could be schooled ........ in wood shop, algebra, and French--schooled ........ in kinder things than death. Yet could a child ........ encounter death more kindly? ........encounter death more kindly?...Then I learn ........ how deeply quiet words can sometimes hurt. ........ “Do you want anything?” I ask, and watch ........ as he looks first at me, then at my wife: ........ “I want to see your daughter one last time.” And I remember reading decades ago a poem by a relatively minor 17th or 18 century poet with a rhyme scheme of:abcdefghijklmmlkjihgfedcba. {I forget exactly how long it was, but it seemed interminable, and the rhymes were neither immediately apparent nor very effective.} |
Here's a poem by Frost (mentioned by Jill above) which makes highly effective use of chiasmus:
Spring Pools These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river, But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods - Let them think twice before they use their powers To blot out and drink up and sweep away These flowery waters and these watery flowers From snow that melted only yesterday. |
I wish I could use the famous Dorothy Parker excuse: I'm too f--ing busy, and vice versa!
Frank |
Jan D Hodge, Dylan Thomas is supposed tohave written a hundred line poem that rhymes the same way as your 17th/18th century chap. No much point to it really. One might try a sonnet abcdefggfedcba. I shall think about that.
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Mary quoted one of my favorite bits of Tennyson. When I read that opening verse, I wonder why I bother to go on trying.
Of course, the goldfish in the font make for an interesting baptism. |
Jan, that is a beautiful and moving poem, and the form sets it off to perfection.
Best, David |
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http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/14.html |
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