I have a new poetic form, and I want your help writing it.
Actually I stole the idea from a famous Canadian, our own Victorian P.K. Page who was master of the Glosa. That particular form, reincarnated from the Spanish courtly poets of the 14th-15th century, is a demanding set of verses consisting of an opening quatrain of four lines from the poem of another poet, living or dead, English or in translation, and then four ten-line stanzas where each line of the original quatrain is used as the concluding line of that stanza. No particular metre is specified, but there is a rhyme condition required of lines 6, 9 and 10 in each of the 10-line stanzas.
Ugh!
Mine is based on candy
Guess which one I'm going to give you.
Waaay back when we could go to a Saturday matinee movie for $1 with money left over for a snack, there was a particular condiment I would often get called Glosettes, chocolate-coated raisins or peanuts. I think Cadburys made 'em. They came in a cellophane package that made a distracting noise when you tore into it part way through the cartoon or serial that preceded every feature presentation. There was Sweet Sue tied to the railway track with the locomotive bearing down on her and Cowboy Kid gallopping to the rescue and we who cared little about such romantic nonsense would be ripping into our packages of Glosettes.
Well now I have resurrected the Glosette as a poetic form which uses 2 or more lines from a Canadian (that's key) poet or songwriter followed by a riff in any poetic form you wish and of any length you want. Look what I've done with a few classics.
Along the line of smokey hills
the crimson forest stands
W.W. Campbell “Indian Summer”
Wildfire Season
We have seen the smoke
come boiling, crimson
in possession of our forests,
insatiable in valleys, crest and crag
to raze our villages,
of high proud homes,
and homesteads humble,
villages entire,
to leave us wrecked
amidst the wreckage
as aristocrats or peasants
might have stared in disbelief
from the tumbril taking them
toward the guillotine.
Out of the night and the north;
Savage of breed and of bone,
Shaggy and swift comes the yelping band,
Freighters of fur from the voiceless land
That sleeps in the Arctic zone.
Pauline Johnson "The Train Dogs"
Contemptible Convoy 2022
Out of the east and the west,
Wannabe heroes with trucks,
Talking themselves to a frenzy they drove.
Against an imagined injustice they strove.
Financed by cowards with bucks.
They thought the people would rise
To delusion, confusion and shame
Refusing to listen to science or news,
With only the "facts" of their media's views
They held politicians to blame.
Benighted, befuddled or drunk,
Posturing, rowdy and rough,
Long blockading our Ottawa heights,
Blasting their horns through the sleepless nights,
'Til a nation pronounced "Enough!"
Sadly this image remains:
Our flag waved about in their space.
A symbol of peace and democracy's cause
Flaunted by fools for a tyrants' applause,
Outlives their dishonour's disgrace.
Break it to them gently when you tell my Mom and Dad.
When you see my baby sister, be as kind as you can.
And break it to my Grandma, who said "That boy's wild and bad".
Break it to them gently when you tell them
that I won't be coming home again.
Burton Cummings "Break It To Them Gently"
Drug Wars
We say it’s a war on the war on drugs,
but the battle’s not just on the streets.
It’s here where the heart and the mind engage
and it’s fuelled by the fire of our grief.
No one asked for a life like the ones we’ve lost,
alone and afraid and in pain,
who died in the dark in the desperate hours
seeking solace from stigma and shame.
We want to awaken a world to know
to these truths, every death testifies:
prohibition’s a friend of corruption and greed;
remedies cannot be founded on lies.
We need a war on the war on drugs
that the body count tells us we’ve lost;
heroes hidden by shame in our alleys or homes,
the dead are too heavy a cost.
Or it’s time for a truce in the war on drugs,
speaking truth to the power of belief;
our constant compassion, the engine of change.
for its fuel is the fire of our grief.
Now it's your turn to contribute. I have a volume of glosette poems almost ready for printing and it runs to about 50 such pieces. I've used lines from long-dead Canadian poets and still-writing modern poets and songwriters. There's some lines from Robert Service and Leonard Cohen in there with the verses they inspired me to compose. But you tell me your favourites. Give me a few lines.
It could be some of the lines you had to memorize way back when you were in school or it might be an excerpt from a song still on the charts. I can't guarantee I'll be prompted to write poems inspired by all of the lines you send, but I can always use the motivation. You can go to my web site page to send responses or just email me a note to rdpeach5@gmail.com or reply in the Facebook "comment' area, and I'll be happy to work on it.
But keep it Canadiana. I love the Bush Poets from Down Under, Dave, but I'm not doing DiggeryDitties - not this time anyway.
I hope Poste Canada Post resolves its differences with its employees in time for you to get the Christmas present I've already sent, and now you can look forward to a copy of Glosettes when I'm ready to print it. Thank you.