<![CDATA[NaPoWriMo: Day 11 – Sapphics]]>[Our prompt for today departs from such concerns, however. Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed and the remainder unstressed). The first three lines consist of two trochees, a dactyl, and two more trochees. The fourth line is a dactyl, followed by a trochee.]

who me? don’t be syllable’y

write a Sapphics you say, as if it’s easy

to squeeze eleven syllables in a line

and just when you’ve got the eleven thing down

break it down to five

but i am not one for following the rules

thank-you for the brief, but i think i will pass

so please keep your syllable count to yourself 

and let me do this

i will write the poem that i want to write 

while everyone else struggles to make theirs “right”

i laugh as i watch them count on their fingers

while i just drop words

will i have regrets? maybe one day i might

but feeling bad about not being a sheep?

well that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense

so perhaps i won’t

at the end of the day, when the lights go out

i will have the satisfaction of having

done my own thing, created in my own way

who is laughing now?

[Missed some days and so jumped ahead to day 20 to try ans catch up]

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