Monosyllabic rewrites
 

Hi,
(am I allowed to start a thread here?)

I've found it fun to try rewriting a familiar verse in monosyllabic words only (proper names exempted.) Anyone else fancy it?

Here's my retread of Keats' On First Looking into Chapman's Homer:

I’ve gone much to and fro in realms of gold;
A fair few fine states and kings’ lands I’ve seen;
Round a great list of the west isles I’ve been
Which bards by oaths sworn to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide space there had I been told
That Homer of deep brow ruled as his scene:
Yet had I not yet breathed its pure air clean
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some man who scans the skies
When first a new orb swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with great hawk’s eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Looked each at each, while guess on guess did rise—
Struck dumb, on a raised point in Darien.

(In L2, not wanting to repeat 'realms', I tried spheres and turfs before settling for lands. There may be something better yet.)

You're allowed to start a thread here, Graham, but I think you must be a masochist for doing this! And you're probably a sadist too, for getting us to try it - heck, it's more of a punishment than an amusement! ;)

I've just tried it and found it incredibly difficult so I didn't get very far. I might persevere and/or try a different poem.
I bet our Brian and our Roger can rise to this, though.

Jayne

Very interesting, but I don't think you necessarily have improved on the original.
Here's an improvement on the original:

On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
(with apologies to John Keats)


I’d never read Chapman before
and felt like that sky-watcher (Moore);
or those blokes on a peak
who weren’t able to speak,
being gobsmacked by all that they saw.

(Prompted by a debate on the need for brevity in poetry.)

A bard more great that I gave me a hand. He wrote his last two lines with ten words each:

Shall I say thou art like a warm, bright day?
Thou art more fair than that, more praise dost rate.
Rough winds do shake sweet buds that bloom in May,
And warm months’ lease hath all too short a date.
The sun, the sky’s hot eye, too harsh can glow,
While clouds his face of gold at times can veil,
And all that’s fair must be in time less so.
In this world, change must come; what thrives must fail.
But thou shalt long and long stay fair, not fade,
Nor lose that glow of youth and love thou ow’st.
Nor shall death brag he cloaks thee in his shade,
When all the world thy fame in these lines know’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I don't feel like trying it, at least at the moment, but it's a fun idea. It might be fun to give up on the rewrite angle and just try to write poems entirely in monosyllables (no exemption for proper names).

Good one, Graham.

Is that yours, David? I like it.

PS-- Just saw yours, Chris. Wunderbar!

Cheers all for your responses.

I doubt I've improved on Keats' original! This poem was familiar to me and seemed to lend itself quite readily to the idea, or may even have suggested it to me, being full of short words already.
In this case I was pleasantly surprised to find I could also manage to have 'my' version still scan and rhyme like the original.

I meant to open up the idea for any other poems, and not necessarily keeping the original metre, rhymes or form in the monosyllabic version. Roger's suggestion to not exempt proper nouns is a challenge...
Some though are a gift:

I don't love thee, Doc Fell
Yet just why I can't tell
But I know it full well -
I don't love thee, Doc Fell.
:)

The joy of Chris's is that it took so little - it's almost a homage to the original.

Chris, I am in awe. The splendour!

190

He was weak and I was strong - then -
So he let me lead him in -
I was weak and he was strong then -
So I let him lead me - Home.

'Twas not far - the door was near -
'Twas not dark - for he went - too -
'Twas not loud, for he said nought -
That was all I cared to know.

Day knocked - and we must part -
No one - was most strong - now -
He strove - and I strove - too -
We did not do it - tho'.

A lot of Emily Dickinson is like this. My changes are quite minor. Interesting if you can spot them before you see it. To compare great things with lesser, a lot of my own poems are fairly monosyllabic.

This is a good exercise. I was listening with half an ear this morning to a fellow from the States talking about "optionalady". It took me a while to understand that he meant "choice".

I am a serial offender with my tendency to reach for the big'uns - a line of iambic pentameter consisting of two words has been a source of pride to me. I shall try to re-write one or two of my own poems in monosyllables.

It will do me good.