Gladstone's Library

Part of my summer holiday was spent in the village of Hawarden in North Wales at Gladstone's Library.

Among other things it was time to listen to Wendy Cope in a poetry reading with her poet husband Lachlan and to attend a workshop with her.

That was interesting and one of the styles of poetic form we used was the triolet.  Here's an example from Robert Bridges.

Robert Bridges (1844-1930)

When first we met, we did not guess

That Love would prove so hard a master;

Of more than common friendliness

When first we met we did not guess

Who could foretell the sore distress,

The inevitable disaster,

When first we met? We did not guess

That Love would prove so hard a master.

It is an interesting structure with the first two lines repeated at the end and the first line is used also as the fourth.  Then the third and fifth lines rhyme with the first, and the sixth line rhymes with the second!  Simple really.  

ABaAabAB 

LuAnn Kennedy (1984– )

We poets are so very strange!

We write and write and lose our minds!

Emotions flow in quite a range;

We poets are so very strange!

We’re happy. Then, we quickly change;

To make a world it takes all kinds.

We poets are so very strange!

We write and write and lose our minds!

So, here's one that I wrote this morning!

This Dougal is a handsome boy

his features are so very fine.

When playing with a favourite toy

this Dougal is a handsome boy.

Who’d have known you’d give such joy;

when you became entirely mine.

This Dougal is a handsome boy

his features are so very fine.

Back to Gladstone's ... a beautiful house with an amazing library.  A few photographs now ... but more to follow.