Wendy, you've upped the ante considerably with the Stevens. After that, the examples in what I'm about to post may seem a little too simple! But this is what I wrote last night, so here goes:
What can you do with eleven lines?
That's the title our judge has suggested for this thread, in which we will warm up for our grand event for March on the Distinguished Guest board: the Short Poems Bakeoff, judged by Wendy Videlock.
I propose to kick off this topic by musing on just a few things one can accomplish by keeping the poem small—or despite keeping it small. By being brief myself, I hope I'm leaving lots of room for people to riff on what I've started, or go off in some wild new direction, or do whatever the spirit moves them to do.
In eleven lines or less, there are any number of things you can't do. You can't write a villanelle, or a sonnet, or a rondeau, so a number of the fixed forms are ruled out. You can't expound; you can't play a great many variations on an idea.
Nevertheless, in eleven lines or fewer, you
can write something that has one or more of the following excellent characteristics. I'll throw in a couple of famous examples of each. I'm hoping others will introduce me to new examples, and I'm also hoping they'll add categories to mine.
Here are a few of the most basic things that eleven lines allow a poet to do.
—Tell a whole story in outline, conveyed with just a few details
xxxxxJade-Staircase Grievance
xxxxxNight long on the jade staircase, white
xxxxxdew appears, soaks through gauze stockings.
xxxxxShe lets down crystalline blinds, gazes out
xxxxxthrough jewel lacework at the autumn moon.
xxxxxLi Bai, trans. David Hinton
xxxxxMentor
xxxxx For Robert Francis
xxxxxHad I known, only known
xxxxxwhen I lived so near,
xxxxxI'd have gone, gladly gone
xxxxxforegoing my fear
xxxxxof the wholly grown
xxxxxand the nearly great.
xxxxxBut I learned alone,
xxxxxso I learned too late
xxxxxTimothy Murphy
—Create something memorable for its sounds Everyone who has learned a nursery rhyme knows the staying power of the short metrical and rhymed form.
xxxxxA Dust of Snow
xxxxxThe way a crow
xxxxxShook down on me
xxxxxA dust of snow
xxxxxFrom a hemlock tree
xxxxxHas given my heart
xxxxxA change of mood
xxxxxAnd saved some part
xxxxxOf a day I had rued.
xxxxxRobert Frost
—Present a single vivid image. You will all be able to predict these examples, but don't be put off by that. They've been anthologized a gazillion times because they work, and because they stick in the mind.
xxxxxIn a Station of the Metro
xxxxxThe apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
xxxxxPetals on a wet, black bough.
xxxxxEzra Pound
xxxxxFog
xxxxxThe fog comes
xxxxxon little cat feet.
xxxxxIt sits looking
xxxxxover harbor and city
xxxxxon silent haunches
xxxxxand then moves on.
xxxxxCarl Sandburg
—Utter a zinger, or its special subtype, the zinger insult
xxxxxHere lies my wife; here let her lie.
xxxxxNow she's at rest. And so am I.
xxxxxJohn Dryden
This seems like an appropriate place to mention the HyperTexts pages on epigrams:
http://www.thehypertexts.com/Epigram...and_Poetry.htm
—Present something gnomic, or cryptic, or otherwise intriguing by its incompleteness
xxxxxBookworm
xxxxxA moth ate a word! To me that seemed
xxxxxA strange thing to happen, when I heard that wonder, —
xxxxxA worm that would swallow the speech of a man,
xxxxxSayings of strength steal in the dark,
xxxxxThoughts of the mighty; yet the thieving sprite
xxxxxWas none the wiser for the words he had eaten!
xxxxxOld English riddle; translator unnamed.
xxxxxWestern Wind
xxxxxWestron wind, when will thou blow?
xxxxxThe small rain down can rain.
xxxxxChrist, if my love were in my arms,
xxxxxAnd I in my bed again.
xxxxxMiddle English lyric
—Stay within the requirements of a number of fixed forms. Here's just one, the ovillejo
xxxxxOstinato
xxxxxEvidence says I lie
xxxxxBut I--
xxxxxThough all the world concur--
xxxxxPrefer
xxxxxOne voice, and one alone:
xxxxxMy own.
xxxxxThe experts cluck and groan,
xxxxx"No, no! It's round, not flat!"
xxxxxTheir data second that.
xxxxxBut I prefer my own.
xxxxxRhina Espaillat
There! With luck, the original short poems thread and these additions should get us going.