Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Susan, on her blog Chicken Spaghetti. Thank you, Susan, for hosting!
What is Poetry Friday? Find out here. It’s a great way to get to know other poets and others who love poetry.
Yesterday I was walking and saw this very common winter sight:
A barren forsythia in winter.
A bare tree. But since it is January, I began to think about spring and how everything will change in a few months. It’s not too early to start to think ahead. After all, days are slowly getting longer and there is no going back.
So since yesterday I tried to capture this bare shrub in a poem, and chose a French form known as the triolet. Some examples can be found here, including examples by poets Laura Purdie Salas and Amy Ludwig Vanderwater. If you are not familiar with this eight line form, it’s described nicely here, at a Masterclass site.
Below are the characteristics of each line. The first two lines are repeated in the last two lines.
Writing a Triolet: 1. The first line (A) 2. The second line (B) 3. The third line rhymes with the first (a) 4. Repeat the first line (A) 5. The fifth line rhymes with the first (a) 6. The sixth line rhymes with the second line (b) 7. Repeat the first line (A) 8. Repeat the second line (B)
After a few tries, and several hours, after discarding “tree” and “bush” for for “shrub,” which seemed more interesting, I came up with this:
Morning Walk By the road a flowering shrub, branches cold and bare, in wintertime, ignored and snubbed, by the road a flowering shrub. Like a member of a dormant club that seems without a care, by the road a flowering shrub branches cold and bare. © Janice Scully (draft)
Here’s a picture of the direction we are headed. You get the idea. I don’t know what kind of flower this is. Does anyone know? I don’t believe it is forsythia.
Happy Winter to you all from cloudy Upstate New York!
Very nice! We have a forsythia right by our driveway, and it’s currently looking forlorn with its branches “cold and bare.” That is quite an accurate description.
Oh, I like that you noticed and wrote, Janice, giving us hope that spring really is ‘around the corner’. I like the springy way the triolet sounds & love that word “snubbed”, winter truth!
Forsythias are the definition of hope! Love how they start smiling before anything else, reminding us spring is coming, spring is coming…. we have a very shady yard (too shady for a flowering shrub), or else I would plant one. Great job with the triolet! (I love writing triolets!) xo
I am in love with this form and how it operates like a little box. The forsythia is just waiting to burst out of the poem and into blossom!
Hi Janice & how wonderful to praise the underestimated bare branches with your fine triolet. A mystery busy is always fun to try to identify – thanks for the hopeful image, contrasting with the unbuded. HappyWeekend, too!
busy [ as opposed to a mystery busy!]
Ooh, I love triolets. Note to self: I should write more of them! I enjoyed your close look at forsythia and your choice of “shrub.”
I never tried this format but you certainly did a fine job. I am sitting looking out at January’s weather and thinking how nice it is to think spring. I am glad that you shared your story of the bare forsythia branches that remind us that spring is in the near future. Hope the sun shines soon in Syracuse. I remember the cloudy day and snow.
Forsythias are simply my favorite! I love how they let us know that the rest of spring is on its way. And, it’s possible that a triolet is a perfect way to my heart. I’m addicted to writing them. There is something so satisfying about getting the rhyme right. “shrub, snubbed and club” are great words…making this a winter branch I care about.
Lovely triolet, and yes, spring is coming! I will miss our forsythia bushes. We had to cut them down when we replaced a retaining wall along the driveway. At least I know where I pass an entire thicket of them on my daily walks.
It’s hard to imagine in the dead of winter that a bush will wake up in spring with glorious flowers. I struggle with any of the forms that require rhyme. It’s hard to make the rhyme that can still make sense to the poem. Shrub works here.
I love the phrase “like a member of the dormant club.” I am trying to really notice the winter woods and then record the changes as we progress through spring!
Your triolet is spot-on. I walk by a forsythia and have noticed the little buds getting ready to announce spring (and inevitably be snowed on at least once more before spring actually arrives!).
When we lived in Western New York and even Maryland, forsythia was certainly an early harbinger of spring and warmer days ahead. Yellow is my favorite color so I always appreciate living things with that hue. I have not tried writing triolets, Janice, but will have to give them a shot. Thanks for the inspiration!
Carol, I was unable to reply to your blog, there’s a glitch I have to work out. Anyway, thank you for sharing what you are up to this year. It was inspiring to hear about the connections you have made and your publishing work. Thanks for your comments here.
Janice, I think the triolet form fit perfectly for your poem – cold, bare, ignored, snubbed, dormant — and with the rhyme and repetition, it reinforced the feeling of being stuck in time. Made me think that the shrub doesn’t know time will pass and spring will come and it will flower again; it persists though. Thank you!
Janice: Lovely, lovely poem! I like your choice of form and the rhyming and the meaning. I have a forsythia on the north side of my house, and now that you mention it, I believe I will have to start watching for changes. You have inspired me! Many thanks.
I’m so glad you reminded me about triolets! The form feels like a perfect fit for your subject. I also appreciate the interjection of hopeful sunny blossoms on an icy wintry morning.