Learning about Poetry (part 5): Muse #3 Reading (Metaphor & Simile)

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.

The poetry lines and content below is created by Ken Wickham, based on the poem above.

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

All rights reserved.

Metaphors and similes compare one thing to another.

A simple exercise, I'll practice using the Emily Dickenson poem again, except the first line which does not rhyme.

A metaphor is something that refers to one thing by writing or saying another thing figuratively rather than literally.

Hope is soaring flight.

A simile is something that compares to something else using the words like or as.

Hope is like rolling dice.
Hope is as flying birds.

Now, to try fitting the sentence with a different topic. I like the first simile line better than the 2nd. Let me see what other word besides hope that I can use. Maybe change.

Change is like rolling dice.

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 3): Muse #3 Reading-Research Rhyme Use

In this post I will research the 9 rhyming words found in the eg/ague set rolled in the part one.

Instead of trying to imitate anything in this post, I will working with one poem in the next post. This post is just to research how some songs and poems have used these rhyming words. This is mainly to help me read and get a feel for how they could be used.

Here are the nine words

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

And here are examples of how they are used in songs and poetic forms—mostly songs.

"Cancelled Check" by Beck
Reaching out for a rotten egg
I dont want to beg

"Disaster Cake" by Cher
You gotta break an egg
If you wanna be in show biz
Then you gotta break a leg
Babe you're heading on a journey

"C.Y.F.M.L.A.Y?" Terence Trent D'Arby
Dont make me beg, dont take me down a peg
Shake a leg, break an egg

"Egg Man" by Beastie Boys
Humpty Dumpty was a big fat egg
He was playing the wall then he broke his leg

"Christmas is A-Comin" Bing Crosby
Christmas is a coming, the ciders in the keg
If I had a mug of cider I wouldnt have to beg

"Party at the Leper Colony" by Weird Al Yankovic
Finger food and an ice-cold keg
It wont cost you an arm and a leg

"You're So Fine" by Whitesnake
Tight skirt, skinny leg

You make a bad dog sit up and beg

"Treat me like the Dog I am" by Motley Crue

At the dog pound make me beg
Got me with my tail between my leg

"The Big Square Inch" by Sammy Hagar

Less skirt and a lot more leg
Down on your knees and beg

"Follow You Home" by Nickelback

You can shoot me in the leg
Just to try to make me beg

"The Beleaguered City" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I have read, in some old, marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.

"Aint Talkin" by Bob Dylan
Aint talkin, just awalkin
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burnin, still yearnin
Walkin athrough the cities of the plague

"Indust" by Sick of It All
We cant ignore all the victims of the plague
Whove been fighting for a future
Thats looking pretty, pretty vague
We cant deny it, we can deny it

"King of the Hill" by Johnny Cash
You watch the girls and you drink bootleg
Get starved to death before you beg

Here are some of the uses of the last few words before the rhyme word from the examples above.
#264 egg, leg, beg, peg, vague, plague, keg, bootleg, nutmeg

rotten egg
an egg
arm and a leg
broke his leg
break a leg
in the leg
lot more leg
want to beg
make me beg
have to beg
knees and beg
down a peg
strange and vague
mysterious and vague
pretty vague
of the plague

I see that some mirror my idiom collecting done in part 2. I think that looking at idioms may help a great amount for inspiration.

In the next Poetry post, I would like to take one very popular short poem and try to play around with changing it just to get some hands on experience working with an established poem.

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.

Learning about Poetry (part 1): Random Word set and Muse #1 Journaling, well...keyword freewrite

I don't know a lot about poetry.

I'm sort of switch Poetry Month and Short Story Month. Last month during Poetry Month at Reddit, I created the short story "The Art of Love and Loss", even though I was also creating Rhyming Fuel, though nobody saw that beyond my family members. This month, which is short story month, I'll try to create poetry at this blog.

A few years ago, I did a series of posts concerning fables. I'd like to do something similar for poetry where I study, learn, and try stuff concerning poetry.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313805/Rhyming-Fuel

I wrote Rhyming Fuel because having a random rhyme word table was the easiest way for me to do something related to poetry. I don't know if I've ever seen a random d1000 rhyme word table before, so the creation seemed like a good challenge.

Having said that, I want to at least try to learn a little about poetry. Maybe a few readers out there would like to follow along or at least read about a poetry journey, however far the attempt continues.

I'm downloading an Open Textbook about poetry to serve as both instruction and inspiration for exercises that I will try.



Naming the Unnameable: an Approach to Poetry for a New Generation is Creative Commons textbook which will form the basis for at least a couple of posts or attempts at poetry.

https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/naming-the-unnameable-an-approach-to-poetry-for-new-generations

Rolling for a Random Rhyme-word set

The textbook doesn't say this, but I want a random word set to begin this experiment. This is takes words that I researched, gathered, and combined the last month and a half. It also gives me a chance to test out the list once more.

I roll a d1000 rolling a 264.

Using Rhyming Fuel, I find the random set.

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

Muse #1 Journaling.

"For many of us, a poem starts with an idea, a memory, a sound, an image.....our
mind sorts through experiences, sensations, feelings, images, and ideas and files them in our
memory".

Here is what I am going to do. I know freewriting, which is Muse #4 in this textbook.

I as a Journaling exercise, I will focus-word freewrite the 9 words above for 10 minutes.

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

It actually took me 13 minutes to react and write about each of the 9 words.

Okay. I now have something at least to work with maybe. At least it is a start. You may freewrite something else.

Next Poetry post.

That's it for today. In the next poetry post I might try Muse #2 Collecting, which is writing down images based on the stuff written above. 

Rhyming Fuel now available. 1000 sets of rhyming words numbered for d1000 rolls.

Now available, Rhyming Fuel

If you accept emails from DTRPG, you may have received a discount address for further savings.

For April's Poetry Month, I created a d1000 tool to roll for sets of random rhyming words.

It has taken a month and a half to get it to the point of release after 6 major revisions. It grew from 30 pages, to 40 pages, and finally 51 pages during the final weeks of adding new material.



https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313805/Rhyming-Fuel

This is a one-time 51 page PDF list of rhyming sets numbered 1 to 1000. About 20,000 words, a few used in more than one set. Sets average 5 to 20 words. They range from 3 to 658 words. No other rhyming lists are planned at this time.

Rhyming Fuel is a 1000 rhyme-word sets on a table mostly reverse alphabetized by ending and numbered for d1000 rolls. The rhyme sets are mostly American English based spelling.

Examples
#56 contagious, courageous, outrageous, umbrageous, advantageous, disadvantageous, ages
#165 arch, march, parch, starch, countermarch, larch, cornstarch, démarche, exarch
#451 cringe, fringe, hinge, singe, springe, tinge, twinge, infringe, binge, dinge, tinge, impinge, infringe, lunatic fringe
#715 forth, fourth, north, worth, due north, henceforth, thenceforth, compass north, east by north, in the north, to the north
#961 gushy, mushy, rushy, slushy, blushy

Examples of rhymes being in a nursery rhyme and a play dialogue.
Bat, bat,
Come under my hat,
And I'll give you a slice of bacon;
And when I bake
I'll give you a cake
If I am not mistaken.
Mother Goose, “Bat, Bat”

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Second Witch: Macbeth: Act IV, scene 1

Rhyme Words – A rhyme has similar repeated or corresponding sounds in the final syllables of two or more words, primarily used in songs and poems at the end of a verse or line.
Rhymes are useful to help construct a more poetic or musical song and poetry to a scene. The function of a rhyme is to create a repeating pattern that is pleasant to hear. Rhymes also aid in memorization.

Although written as a solo rpg accessory, this product is also a stand alone tool ready—it takes zero conversion to use as a GM tool to help generate scene or dialogue keywords. It is part of the Clawed SRC Accessory ™ and Grammar Fuel ™ brands.

Fuel your game with Rhyming Fuell table of 1000 rhyme-word sets!

If you find any mistakes, this post may serve as a place to report errors or such.

Version update or plans

V1.01 changed one thing. I took a chunk of words ending in -y from words that rhyme with "die", a

long "I" sound and moved it to "ee" ending words since most of that list were words like "agony" rather than words like "crucify".

planned for V1.02 I notice that in #985 "trad route" should be "trade route".

7-core set now available

Last year, I bundled the then-current 4-core set of RPG tools for the end of spring and summer 2019 gaming. This year, I'm doing the same. This time it is a 7-core set! It is 520 pages of 100 RPG gaming tools for US $ 46.48 (or less depending on how many of the pieces you already own).

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311357/RPG-Tools-Character-Setting-Story-Words--Violence-BUNDLE



Added to the 5-volume set of last fall are the two new volumes from Grammar Fuel series.
Grammar fuel is sets of random tables separated by part of speech, phrase, or idiom and alphabetized in mostly d1000 tables (one is d10, one d20, two d100).

These Grammar Fuel tables have the American English most common and frequent words all on tables to help build any open world.

Grammar Fuel: Parts of Speech

Grammar Fuel: parts of speech (POS) tables have 2,000 verbs, 2,000 nouns, 2,000 adjectives, 1,000 adverbs, 1,000 interjections, 250 prepositions, 100 pronouns, 100 subordinating conjunctions, 100 determiners, 20 correlative conjunction pairs, 8 coordinating conjunctions, and 5 article/plural combinations.

So, it is like a 8,583 random word table divided by part of speech. However, speaking styles influence which words are generated somewhat.

In addition, the POS book has a dialogue style engine which five differing dialogue styles of thinking, doing, feeling, discussing, and formal use the various parts of speech in different proportions.

The POS book also has a dialogue style question-word table, which an NPC or gamemaster surrogate ask 17 different types of questions beginning with 17 different question words (who, what, when, where, why,.....) either randomly, triggered, or both causality.

I use this and the 2nd book to roll up 1 to 3 keyword to be used in a dialogue for solo gaming.

Other uses might include rolling for random setting features (noun + adjective, determiner, or preposition), descriptive pronouns (pronoun + adjective, preposition, or noun), descriptive verbs (verb + adverb or preposition. If used as a GM surrogate, it may be used to indicate that the GM is asking the player an important question or adding an important detail.

127 page PDF with bookmarked side navigation, hyperlink table of contents, and a hyperlinked navigation page accessible quickly from every page by clicking on a link on the bottom of every page.

Examples from the included 16 parts of speech tables.

Verb Fuel #73 beg

More Verb Fuel #78 attempt

Adjective Fuel #74 benevolent

More Adjective Fuel #94 battle-scarred

Noun Fuel #95 brother

More Noun Fuel #143 coin

Adverb #78 barely

Pronoun #18 he

Preposition #113 to #116 as for

Article nouns.
Article 1to 2 the [singular]

Determiner #12 all
Coordinating Conjunction #6 but
Correlative Conjunction #6 just as...so...
Subordinating Conjunction #6 although

Interjection #78 best wishes

Grammar Fuel: 12,000 Phrases & Idioms

Grammar Fuel: 12,000 Phrases & Idioms is a 12,000 phrases and idioms on 12 tables alphabetized and numbered for d1000 rolls. The idioms are mostly American English based.

I use this second book to take the place of any one part of speech roll, whenever desired.

146 page PDF, bookmark navigation, hyperlink table of contents, and a navigation page which may be accessed quickly from every page by clicking on a link on the bottom of page.

These are just features found in the two newest PDF books

Plus the Prior 5 PDF books

This character mechanism book has tools to help create PC and NPC characters, character behavior, dialogue topics, voice qualities, character motivation, character sensory data, emotions, body language, human physical descriptions, character knowledge, careers, subconscious dreams & interpretation, and circles of relationships. The basic NPC AI is included focusing on personality archetype, moods, emotions, body language, motivation, dialogue engine, behavior engine, and relationship circles (the next volume, CM2 has character thinking, relationships, and reaction (emotion) engines).

This character mechanism II book has tools to help create descriptive character traits, flaws, thoughts, reactions, and relationships.

This story mechanism book has keyword(s) tools to help create story plots, twists, theme, mood, motive, foe, story seed, scene action, transition scenes, narrative, and work with the main conflicts.

This environmental mechanism book has tools to help create brief descriptive mostly outdoor setting, weather, terrain, natural disasters, Earth-like animals, and even fantasy worlds. The focus of the tools are to create description in brief-but-unique sentence descriptions made with keywords. Each of the tools focuses on using specific biome, terrain, type of environmental event, sensory experience, or life type keywords or details.

This remnant RPG tools book has tools to help have more descriptive violent combat. One strike kills and limb severence are possible with this tool. Because of this, this book is for more mature gamers. This also brings together a revised and slightly expanded combat system from the minimalist system, three descriptive combat critical tables, minimalist skills, minimalist elemental effects, minimalist: fear, disgust, & madness, and minimalist: ghosts, angels, & demons.