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Sunday Scribblings #100: In the Beginning There Was a Letter

So once upon a time, there were Simply Sunday posts. And then there was the beginning of Sunday Scribblings.

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Notepad and a pen over it with a cup of coffee next to it. words read Sunday Scribblings, and this is for Sunday Scribblings #100: In the Beginning There Was a Letter

Poetic Sundays: Where the Beginning is the Same

I continue to feature poetic forms created by or popularized by women for Women’s History Month as mentioned earlier this month. Today’s form is called the trolaan, created by Valerie Peterson Brown.

What is the Trolaan?

The trolaan is a poem consisting of 4 quatrains, where each quatrain begins with the same letter and has a rhyme scheme of abab. Starting with the second stanza you use the second letter of the first line of the previous stanza as the starting letter for every line of that stanza.

The Trolaan’s Characteristics

At its most basic, the trolaan’s characteristics are that it is:

  • Stanzaic: has four 4-line stanzas, or quatrains
  • Rhymed: with rhyming scheme of abab/cdcd/efef/ghgh across the four quatrains
  • Alliterative (kind of): that is, each line of a quatrain begins with the same letter
  • Interlinked: each quatrain has a lettered link to the previous quatrain. The common starting letter of each quatrain’s lines comes from the previous quatrain; each time, it is the second letter of the first line of the previous quatrain

The Beginning or First Attempt

The Beginning: A Tall Tale?
“Once upon a time, my child,
over those hills kissing the skies,
one heard tales cool and wild,
of an ogress who sang to mice!”

“Nenek, tell me more,” said Jess.
“Now I really need to know!! Did
no one ever know the ogress?
Not one man, woman, or kid?”

“Eager as always to learn
everything, my sweet! One fine
evening, my kakek took a wrong turn,
entered a wood almost divine!

As he stood there in awe,
astonished, truly, and
amazed at all he saw
a sweet ‘hello’ beckoned.”

~vidya tiru @ladyinreadwrites

Further reading and h/t
  • ShadowPoetry (you can also find examples of this form through the provided link)

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My college freshman son is home for spring-break! Which means that we can finally setup that shelf we ordered a while ago – I had kept the box aside for both of us to put together when he is here. There was a time when I was the official-furniture-put-together-er, and the rest of the fam pitched in to help during those stages where more than one pair of hands were needed. Now, I am the helper to my son 🙂

I have a few (well, tons more than a few) reads that I need to review so I will try to do a couple of mini-reviews to feature a few of them at a time before April’s craziness begins (AtoZ, NaPoWriMo, UBC etc).

This Week’s Celebrations

Literary Celebrations (close-to-it also!)

  • Literary birthdays this week of March include: Oyinkan Braithwaite and Phyllis McGinley on the 21st; Billy Collins, James Patterson, and Louis L’Amour on March 22nd; Jonathan Ames on the 23rd of March; Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Muthuswami Dikshitar on March 24th; Kate DiCamillo and Linda Sue Park on the 25th of March; Erica Jong, Richard Dawkins, Robert Frost, Tennessee Williams, Mahadevi Varma, and Viktor Frankl on March 26th; Julia Alvarez on March 27th
  • The 21st of March is World Poetry Day and World Puppetry Day
  • National Tolkien Reading Day is on the 25th of March
  • March 27th is National Scribble Day

Foodie Celebrations

Other Celebrations

Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, you have reached the end of this Sunday Scribblings! As always, I welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions about this post. And do let me know if you plan to celebrate any of these mentioned celebrations this coming week/month? Also, what are some of the wonderful things that happened recently to you or that you heard of?

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon

10 thoughts on “Sunday Scribblings #100: In the Beginning There Was a Letter

  1. How great that your son is home! I never figured out about the different poem forms. My poems are very elementary, I read them as I come up with something. Most of the time I rhyme every other line.

  2. I love reading your posts about the different poetic forms. Trolaan sounds familiar. I took an English poetry class when I was in college a long time ago and I remember really liking it, but I have forgotten the different styles of poetry. It’s fascinating to read about it!

  3. I’ve always found poetry beautiful, but for some reason, my brain has never been able to easily identify the type or formatting. I appreciate learning more about them from you!

  4. I do not know about Trolaan poetry and I find it very interesting. I am glad your son is home and I hope you both enjoy the spring break.

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