[Tony Barnstone]

Hey All,

I've always enjoyed bout rimes sonnets (in which you write your sonnet to pre-set rhymes, sometimes derived from other poems).

Here is a set of words I derived from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and from my crazy one-in-the morning mental ramblings.

Give it a shot, and I will as well. Rules of the game: feel free to adjust the words slightly (read instead of red, etc.), and if you really need to reorder the rhymes to make your sonnet work, go ahead, but try to maintain the same order if possible.

Best,

Tony




mimic
serve us
gimmick
nervous

opera
red
shop for a
chickenhead

focus
dour
hocus-pocus
sweet-and-sour

stall
Taj Mahal

[Ann Drysdale]

Oh, woe betide the muggins who would mimic
the ways in which the skillful builders serve us.
The application of the latest gimmick
for home improvement makes me really nervous,
for who can reproduce the magna opera
of a true craftsman? He who simply read
the advertising and rushed out to shop for a
Do-it-All gizmo is a chickenhead.
Classy construction can’t be bought in Focus.
The expert will condemn with aspect dour
the “Handyman” and all his hocus-pocus.
His bodging is as shop-bought sweet-and-sour
To the fine feasts of one who could install
An ensuite bathroom in the Taj Mahal

[Maryann Corbett]

The Introvert's Guide to Party Survival

The chief skill to be mastered is to mimic
the people who like parties. So if they serve us
weird food (like steak tartare, some half-raw gimmick)
we must look game, and not let on we're nervous.

Pretend we know the plots to recent opera.
Admire the chic of great rooms painted red--
but yikes. Dressed wrong. There wasn't time to shop for a
new outfit. Feels like I've worn a chickenhead,

and the host's so fatuous I can barely focus.
A side glance, and I see you looking dour--
Honey, let's go. Let's can this hocus-pocus.
You'd rather go for take-out sweet-and-sour?

Fake getting paged. Maybe we can forestall
the tour of this McMansion Taj Mahal.




(Dang, Tony, these were not easy!)

[Tony Barnstone]

Hi Ann and Maryann,

No, they were not easy! In fact, I've banged my head against them for a while but still can't make mine work yet. I'll keep trying. Good job, though. I'm very impressed with your sonnets.

Best, Tony

[Maryann Corbett]

While we wait, and to instruct and inspire and motivate others, here's a link to a collection of really wonderful bouts-rimes, Fashioned Pleasures

I think some of them actually got their start on these boards (does anybody remember?)

[Roger Slater]

BAD DATE

Our waiter claimed to be a perfect mimic.
"Mimic, then, a waiter, please, and serve us.
Does everybody need to have a gimmick?
A Richard Nixon waiter makes me nervous!"

I cringed. You were a jerk. After the opera,
you spent ten minutes claiming that the red
costumes were un-Verdi-like. I shop for a
wife these days in earnest, you chickenhead,

as I grow older that's become my focus,
then you show up. No wonder I grow dour.
I look for love that's magic, hocus pocus,
sweet and sweet and sweet, not sweet and sour.

Why do I munch samosa in this stall
when all my dreams are in the Taj Mahal?

[Ann Drysdale]

Maryann, I haven't been around long enough for that and my Internet Explorer refuses to display the page from your link - but I do remember Mary M's wonderful example in the Light Verse Bake-off.

Bouts Rimés was one of the pastimes indulged in by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood during the long dark winter evenings when they made their own entertainments (I claim a double cliché score there) to keep their skills in trim. Christina Rossetti (an honorary brother) used regularly to beat the others in the game.

[Maryann Corbett]

Try the link now, Ann. (The notorious double-http struck again, but I've fixed it.)

[Ann Drysdale]

Yes, it works now. I shall wallow.

And the Bad Date sonnet is pleasingly clever - I love the way you get from Opera to Red via Verdi - I'm still grinning.

[Richard Epstein]

Does it matter that "dour" really isn't a good rhyme for "sour," even though the rest of the rhymes are more or less perfect? "Dour" should rhyme with "fewer," though I suppose this is one of those Brit/Yank things.

RHE