"Whatever you practice, you will get good at," I warn or promise my students and kids, depending on the tone to make the difference. Hmmm...
A compromise: here's a little quatrain, short and stout, that I've always thought would make a fine assignment for students of just about any age, by the charming second-generation New York School poet Ron Padgett, from his out-of-print book Toujours l'amour:
Poetic LicenseThe assignment would be, more or less, to write your own "Poetic License." No more than four lines, rhyming AABB, lines expandable ad libertam until the rhyme arrives (in manner of Ogden Nash, if slightly less graceful under pressure). "This license VERB / That YOUR NAME HERE may..." etc.
This license certifies
That Ron Padgett may tell whatever lies
His heart desires
Until it expires
As this blog will no doubt soon show, I love quatrains, epigrams, short poems of almost all kinds. Hence my much-loved mandolin, that epigram of instruments. (As oud is the ghazal!)
More soon--
2 comments:
If I can figure out a way to give the comments titles, Chandella, I'll do it. I'm new to all this blogging, though! Thanks for leaving the comment--
EMS
That's a cute poetry exercise. I bet kids have a lot of fun with that one.
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