My last Sunday Scribblings was almost a month ago now; it seems a whole fortnight of weekends went by at lightspeed since then. While my daily posts for this month have not really been as planned (or not daily), that is the hope for the rest of the month. And I really can’t think of a title!! So if you have a clever one that might fit this hodge-podge of content, let me know (will not be updating it but might think to myself, should have used it!)
Poetic Sundays
The Diminishing Verse
I continue exploring invented poetic forms, that I started with my last Poetic Sundays. Invented poetic forms range from the fun to the more serious ones, each one clever and retaining a unique flavor all its own. This week’s featured form is the diminishing verse.
What is the Diminishing Verse?
Looking at my go-to places on the web for poetry forms and to new places for this specific one led me to a couple variations. And since one thing was clear – no clear rules for this form, I put the most interesting parts (for me) in today’s post.
As the name suggests, there is something that diminishes as lines go by in this verse. That something is letters of the last word in each line. The poet reduces the last word by a letter (or more) without rearranging them until there is none left to reduce. So, no other rules for rhyme, meter, theme, or for a required number of syllables, lines or stanzas in this form.
Simply keep diminishing the last word of each line until … you can’t. And there is no known origin for this form as well.
h/t: Writer’s Digest and YeahWrite
The Diminishing Verse’s characteristics
With rules being as they are, these are the characerstics:
- No rules! except this one, reduce (or diminish) the last word of each one by one (or more) letter(s) with each following line as required, until there is none left to reduce.
- Note that each new diminished word needs to make sense too; it can be a word from another language if you so wish. Or it can be a nonsense word too! Just ensure it sounds like it makes sense in context!!
- If you want to continue writing after you have run out of word, start a new stanza with a new “start” word. The poem can be as long as you choose it to be – by choosing multiple start words for each stanza/verse; or by choosing a bigger start word (can be difficult to find bigger start words to diminish successfully, but if you, go for it!!)
Ways to Play With this Form
This form lends itself to many variations given its lack of rules, and given the one rule we do follow as we write it. So here are some ways to do so (some of which I came up with as I tried writing and others are from my go-to online resources mentioned above):
- Have multiple stanzas with each stanza having a different last word (maybe same length of word to make the stanzas evenly sized)
- Remove the first letter(s) from that last word (my example below)
- Diminish by removing the last letter(s) from that last word
- Make it alliterative too if you want – for each line using the starting letter of that last word for that line of the verse. For example, in my attempt below, the words in the first line can all start with b, in line two with r, and so on.
- Options are endless. Make it as challenging as you wish.
My Example Diminishing Verse: Can’t Think of a Title!
My first attempt.
“My dear girl, can you please fetch the broom
We need to scurryfunge, especially this room
There are guests arriving, tante and oom*
Anytime soon, now!!” “Mama, don’t panic. Say om.”
-vidya tiru
*tante and oom – aunty and uncle in Dutch
Since I Last Scribbled
My son handed over the benches he made for his Eagle Project to his middle school. This is my daughter adding one last layer of stain to the bench.
My Most Recent Posts
Since my last Sunday Scribblings…
- 10 Great Books for International Day of the Girl Child
- Excited to be a Part of The Cybils Awards This Year
- Leif Eriksson – The Viking Who “Discovered” America?
- Life is Like That – Full of Magical Moments
- Premeditated Myrtle: Happy Book Birthday!
- 13 Random Facts About Me
- The Book Blogger Tag: A Sneak Peek
- Free Halloween Printables For Kids
- 30+ Fantastic Books to Read For the Fall Season
- The Magic of Emerging Patterns That is Tie-Dye
- 35 Words That Used to Mean Something Completely Different Before
- 13 Fun and Fascinating Facts About Familiar Books
- Share Your Data Visually and Make It Better
- Templates That Will Help Write Poems Easily
- What Makes For a Memorable Bookish Experience?
- 5 Tips from an Expert at Playing Catch-Up
- 5 Fascinating Flip Books That Will Wow You
- 5 Hacks to Save Money That You Can Use
- Steve Jobs: The Hero of Everyday Technology
- How Craft Fair Failures Teach Lessons of Value
- 5 Nifty Ways You Can Easily Improve Your Writing
- Never Thought About It & Now I Know Better
- Skunk and Badger: Blog Tour and Book Review
- Sunday Scribblings #45: Of Orange Skies and Cornerstone Challenges
Other Updates
I (almost) finished The Cornerstone Content Blog Challenge (for September 2020). Martha and Jeanine are among the best hosts you can expect to have for such a challenge, and I look forward to joining again in December for the same. This month, however I am participating in the UBC while devouring more books; many of them for a reason – the Cybils Awards!
I talked about it earlier this week; if you have a favorite children’s or YA book published in the last year and you would love to see it get more recognition, you have till the 15th of October to nominate it for the Cybils Awards. Check for more details and nominate here– really simple process and this will give the judges more to read and choose from!
MyPhotoADay
My bookstagram attempts
ONE
TWO
The Others
SONS
and DAUGHTERS
Upcoming
On My Blog and Home-front
My Blog
Expect to see reviews, of course, as always, as I continue to share my favorite reads with you. And a few other posts I had in mind as well.
My Home-front
Not much new here. College-app-work continues. Essays are being (re)written and reviewed currently.
This Week’s Celebrations
Here are some of the fun ones I know I will enjoy celebrating.
- It is National Freethought Day on the 12th of October, a day that encourages people to be free thinkers and base their opinions on facts, science, logic, and reason. Unfortunately, a day like this is needed even today.
- Challenge yourself to puzzles and riddles on October 13th which is National Train Your Brain Day
- A day that I think I celebrate everyday!! It is National Dessert Day on October 14th.
- I certainly love Lucy, and it is National I Love Lucy Day on Oct 15th (the show debuted on this date in 1951)
- National Dictionary Day was created in honor of Noah Webster’s birthday (October 16, 1758). Open a dictionary, either the physical one, or go online, learn a new word or two. Or learn something interesting about words you thought you knew.
- It is Black Poetry Day on October 17th. You can check out this post – I have a couple of great books perfect for this day in the same. You could check them out to celebrate Maybe enjoy all that wonderful poetry with some delicious food as it is also National Pasta Day.
- I know I want to celebrate National Exascale Day Exascale computing refers to computing systems capable of at least one exaflop or a billion billion calculations per second, which is 1018, well, October 18th. Celebrate by reading about the Nobel Award winners (so many women too!) or creating a cool science project, or reading STEM books. Here are a few for the little ones. And pair STEM with a cupcake; it is National Chocolate Cupcake Day too on the 18th.
- National Sweetest Day celebrated every 3rd Saturday in October. It encourages everyone to be generous even in the smallest ways. From its inception as Candy Day in 1916, this day reminds us that even small tokens improve the lives of those around us.
Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings
So dear reader, this was it for my Sunday Scribblings. I would love to hear your comments on my post(s), poems, poetic Sunday section, and anything else. And which of these days do you plan to celebrate (or any other)?
Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon.
My reply- m. Or maybe that should be mmmm!
(Titles: Lopping little bits off… 99 bottles of beer on the wall, but with poetry….Going,going,gone!)
LOL, about your suggested titles!! And perfect too…. M was certainly something I thinkinggggg
Oh, my, how do you do it all? You are a very good teacher. Diminishing sounds fun.
Lily, thank you! And I wonder how you do all that you do 🙂
I had never heard of that kind of poetry before. I’m going to have to try it sometime.
it is a fun challenge for sure!
You are a talented poetry writer! Loved your diminishing verse. I also greatly admire your graphics and Insta pics.
thanks so much for those high compliments Jeanine!!
The diminishing poetic form sounds fun. There’s something wonderful about a poem that manages to follow a form as well as have meaning.
I’ve been eager to read Skunk and Badger. Thank you for sharing your review. Now I really can’t wait.
Your son’s bench looks great. Congratulations on his accomplishment.
Have a good week.
thanks so much Deb.. it was definitely fun writing this form.. And Skunk and Badger is such a sweet and quick read too..
I will pass on the compliments to my son
I loved the lessons on poems in school, and this was fun. I love the choice of Dutch words you used in the example. I hope you have a lovely week!
thanks Kimberly! I do enjoy sharing these poetic forms and glad you loved the read
What beaut benches your sonal made! I love your poetry and Myrtle sounds like a very interesting book.
thanks so much Martha.. your encouragement keeps me going
I’ve just accepted that time has gone all confusing, some days are so slow some days it feels like I wake up and it’s evening. I hope your week ahead is great!