Learning about Poetry (part 4): Muse #3 Reading (Imitating)

In the last post, I researched different poems that contained words from my random rhyme set. In this post I will try to mimic a portion of a famous American poem by Emily Dickenson.

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

By Emily Dickenson compiled around 1861.

To me, it looks like the rhyme scheme is the following for the entire poem.
Each letter represents a possible rhyme ending. I've highlighted in different colors the pairs that I think might rhyme.

A, B, C, B
D, E, D, E
F, G, G, G

So, taking some of the 9 words and focusing on only one portion of the ED poem, I'll try write something similar—yet different.

#264 egg, leg, beg, peg, vague, plague, keg, bootleg, nutmeg

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Plague Across the Land

©2020 by Ken Wickham based on Emily Dickenson's "Hope is a thing with feathers"
All rights reserved.

I've seen across the entire land,

All victims of the plague,

In a world looking strange and vague,

No, I don't want to beg.

Learning about Poetry (part 2): Muse #2 Collecting (idioms)

In the last post, I used freewriting to write down some associations, feelings, thoughts, and relationships to words rolled for from d1000 table in Rhyming Fuel. Since I have not been keeping a journal, the freestyle let me capture a 13 minute look into what came off the top of my head for the 9 rhyming words.

In this post, I will be collecting ideas also based off of the nine keywords and the freewriting.

egg...chicken, birth, lay, breakfast, scrambled, oval, omelet, new, incubate, innovation, hot, cold

leg...broken, chair, walking, kicking, stand, standing, asleep, stable, sufficient, sore

beg...need, want, desire, must have, desperate, beggar, don't have, forgiveness, mercy, ask, motivated

peg...hang, place, hit, decide, fit, plug, mark, holt together, small fastener, home supply store, wooden

vague...unclear, murky, misty, foggy, dark, unknown, confused, brief, barely, unsure, unexplainable

plague...coronavirus, stay at home, walking pneumonia, hospital, contagious, communicable, sickness, long duration, antidote

keg... dynamite, beer, Cracker Barrel, barrel, container, holding, storage, filling, emptying

bootleg...unofficial, underground, copy, illegal, music, movie, 

nutmeg... spice, ingredient, French toast, cookies, baking, eggnog

Collecting, according to the open poetry textbook Naming the Unnameable, is writing down "images, ideas, and phrases" or sparks of poetry.

So for this exercise, I'll write down a few idioms based on the words above.

I like Idioms. In Grammar Fuel: 12,000 Phrases & Idioms, I collected 12,000 mostly American English idioms. Idioms are groups of words that carry cultural based meaning. Here are some idioms grouped together for each of the words.

a bad egg
egg on one's face
walk on egg shells
you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs
a nest egg
all one's eggs in one basket
lay an egg

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

without a leg to stand on
cost/give an an arm and a leg
as fast as your legs can carry you
pull someone's leg
put one's pants on one leg at a time, just like everbody else
stretch one's legs
tail between one's legs
the first leg
get a leg up
be on one's last legs
fresh legs
break a leg

beg for
beg the question
beg to differ
beg, borrow, or steal
beg your pardon
beg for something
beg on bended knee
beg to disagree
beg something from someone

a peg on which to hang something
fit together like a square peg in a round hole
peg as something
have someone pegged
be knocked down a peg (or two)
take one down a peg (or two)
peg away at something

wake up in a vague fog like a cloudy mist

avoid someone or something like the plague
plague one with something

keg party
powder keg
sitting on a powder keg

bootlegged movies
bootlegged CDs
bootlegged software
This must be a bootleg copy—the quality is terrible.

a wooden nutmeg

That is pretty fun. Already after doing the freewriting and this idiom exercise, it feels like the foundation for a poem is already constructed.

The next muse in this series is Muse #3 Reading. In that post, I'll research some poetry in the past to see if I can build a small chunk of poetry fragments for some or all of the 9 keywords. I may even try to imitate those historical chunks.

Grammar Exercise (Balarila): Nouns (Pangngalan)

For English Grammar, I'll use a public domain source material from 1898 called Primary English Grammar.

INSTRUCTIONS

In the following Exercise, state the class to which each noun belongs. Example : Robert is a proper noun because it is a particular name.

EXERCISE I.
Robert, cow, swarm, length, Sarah, road, blanket, horse, Joseph, city, emperor, stove, sweetness, river, Washington, depth, gate, crowd, town, James, pig, Susan, company, lake, Samuel, coat, Annie, desk, weight, grass, mother, smoothness, Jessie, stool, money, William, strength.

Write twenty common nouns, ten proper nouns, five collective nouns, and five abstract nouns not
found in above exercise.

Tagubilin

Sa sumusunod na Ehersisyo, sabihin ang klase kung saan nabibilang ang bawat pangngalan. Halimbawa: Ang patanging pangngalan si Robert sapagkat siya'y isang partikular o tiyak na pangalan. PAGSASANAY I.
a. Robert, baka, kawan, haba, Sarah, kalsada, daan, kumot, kabayo, Joseph, lungsod, emperor, kalan, kamote, ilog, Washington, lalim, pintuan, karamihan ng tao, bayan, James, baboy, Susan, kumpanya, lawa, Samuel, diyaket, Annie, desk, timbang, damo, ina, kinis, Jessie, upuan, pera, William, lakas.

b. Sumulat ng dalawampung pambalanang pangngalan, sampung patanging pangngalan, sampung lansak na pangngalan, at sampung basal na pangngalan hindi matatagpuan sa pagsasanay sa itaas.

ANSWERS I.

a. Common nouns are cow, road, blanket, horse, city, emperor, stove,  river,  gate, town,  pig,  lake,  coat,  desk, weight, grass, mother, company, stool, money.

Proper nouns are Robert, Sarah, Joseph, Washington, James, Susan, Samuel, Annie, Jessie, William.

Collective nouns are swarm, crowd.

Abstract nouns are length, sweetness, depth, company, smoothness,  strength.

b. Twenty common nouns are dragon, wizard, knight, sword, staff, castle, spaceship, orc, elf, dwarf, treasure, wand, spellbook, armor, platemail, chainmail, computer, gun, tank, and helmet.
Ten proper nouns are Frodo, Harry, Treebeard, Gandalf, Sauron, Mirkwood, Captain Kirk, Spock, Rivendell, and Hogwarts.

MGA SAGOT I. a. Ang mga pambalanang pangngalan ay baka, kalsada, daan, kumot, kabayo, lungsod, emperor, kalan, kamote, ilog, lalim, pintuan, bayan, baboy, kumpanya, lawa, diyaket, desk, damo, ina,  upuan, pera. Ang mga patanging pangngalan ay si Robert, si Joseph, si Sarah, Washington, si James, si Samuel, si Susan, si Annie, si Jessie, at si William. Ang mga lansak na pangngalan ay kawan, karamihan ng tao. Ang mga basal na pangngalan ay haba, timbang, kinis, lakas. b. Dalawampung pambalanang pangngalan ay karagatan (dagat), kagubatan, bundok, desyerto, ilang, mangkukulam, salamangkero, pantas, bruho, kabalyero, tutubi, diwata, engkanto, ada, duwende, engkantada, trol, ispada, tabak, at panangga. Sampung patanging pangngalan ay Bulakan, si Jose, si Maria, si Maricel, si Maritess, si Erlinda, si Marino, si Mark, Olangapo, at si Liza Sampung lansak na pangngalan ay langkay, umpukan, kuyog, kaharian, pulutong, hukbo, kulumpol, kolonya, lehiyon, at bigkis. Sampung basal na pangngalan ay agwat, layo, init, lamig, tamis, bait, taas, tangkad, ligaya, at katotohanan.

Looking back at the exercise

Okay, here was the exercise for the prior review. I tried to add some fantasy or science-fiction into some of the answers.

Summertime Writing: freewriting

This summer I want to try several activities just to experiment.

Writing things out, for me, helps in the future for future projects. I'll check out a few books from a library that have engaging activities and see what becomes of these experiments.

Why would I do such a potential messy activity?

Over time, stuff that is recorded has a way of becoming something else in the future.

However, if information isn't recorded then it can't become anything in the future.

The current book that I will use to try some exercises is Spellbinding Sentences by Barbara Baig.

This post is a freewriting practice from chapter 2, the exercise subtitled Be a Writer.

For that exercise, the author challenges the writer to sit down and type for 10 minutes without stopping in order "to write".

Freewriting is a prewriting technique used to produce raw material (content) in order to overcome potential writing blocks such as criticism or apathy. The technique may also be used to generate or create beginning ideas or initial thoughts.

I'm going to mix this exercise with picking a current event and trying to change the event into a fictional event.

A few days ago, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA Championship. In the game, Kevin Durant, one of the Golden State Warriors' main star, returned and was injured in the first half—a game where his team eventually lost.

Let me try turning parts of that idea into a fictional situation.

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First, keeping his initials, I'll change Kevin Durant into Keith Duvall.

For a genre, I'll change the situation into a western gunfighter situation.

Keith Duvall is a heroic, an African American former Union soldier who fought in the US Civil War.

After the war, Keith settled and built a cattle ranch in the expanding Western Frontier.

Several outlaws had ravaged the area in recent days and made off with several head of cattle.

He awoke that night hearing his cattle restless and commotion out at his barn.

Grapping his rifle, he shouted to his ranch hands to get their guns.

Outside, in the half moonlight night, he saw the torches bright like a swarm of fireflies around the large barn.

"Go right," he whispered and hand motioned to his help.

Taking position behind a large oak tree, he began to fire his rifle at the nearest bandits.

The bandits shouted to each other and then bullets began flying at Keith.

He felt pain as one tore through his lower leg.

In the skirmish, Keith was injured with his posy against the bandits in a shoot out.

Unfortunately Keith was injured—shot in the calf—early during the volleys of bullets.

Upset and in agony, he watched as many of his cattle were taken away. One of his main ranch hands was also injured.

He could not protect his ranch despite his prior victories in war.

He swallowed hard—a painful sickness swam in the pit of his stomach.

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In the future I'll try several more writing exercises, or whatever, during this summer.