ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Postscript to an Epitaph
(c) 2010 Manfred Vijars

For a boring seven foot iambic that's a nice little poetic jaunt, Manfred
I like the refund is/blunders rhyme. And why exactly are you writing your own epitaph? Going somewhere?

Good stuff, Marty

... we're all going somewhere Marty besides, I'm not writing my own epitaph - just the postscript, in case thay leave something out ...
Oh, and it's a boring seven and a half foot iambic ...

refund is....blunders.. Manfred you've been at the vodka again. One of your ABPA judges wrote against one of my rhymes.." near enough is not good enough "
And you seem to have sneakily introduced some trochaic substitutions.

All in all, I thought it was a great poem,I like it.
No need to change anything I reckon.
When you make me a judge I'll give it top marks.


Neville.

Goodonya Nevie ... cast your training judges eye over the following and let me know if they work ...

stage is
pages

earn in
learnin

tell it
pallette

Garrett
share it

blew in
ruin

obvious
wayward bus

found my star
repertoire

...fund is
blunders
---

If they're rhymes, what sort of rhymes?
If they're not, why not?

M. ...

Well, I suppose you could call them near rhymes. I have not been instructed in my research that near rhymes are a failure of poetic form. .

Some of our illustrious judges think that the description perfect rhyme means in a qualitative way rather than just a categorical way. That somehow imperfect rhyme is a flawed product, which of course is not necessarily the case.

But I think care is needed, Two words do not always seem to quite fit the rhythm of one word with similar letter sound sequence.

obvious and wayward bus , ruin and blew in found my star and repertoire don't quite have the same rhythm, maybe even not the same metre, blunders and fund is that's real Ogden Nashian stuff, perhaps best used in comic verse I think.

John Whitworth's favourite is a good one

I blushed up to the hat o' me
To see that girl's anatomy.



Neville

...great poem Manfred..

h

Thanks Hully ...

G'day Nev ... Being locked into the "moon" and "june" type rhymes may be a tad difficult to break away from, but expending the effort in a wider search for 'possibilities' extends the pallet.

Take a look at Graham Fredriksen's pieces, on these pages ...
SOMEONE ELSE’S WAR - BALUCHI VALLEY 2010

... and in the current ABPA Mag ..
MAGPIE CREEK AIR DISASTER—1943
MIDNIGHT’S LAST RACE
PRELUDE 11

... and see how well a bit of effort in the writing makes the end-rhymes less predictable and the piece(s) shine. ...

You are right Manfred. Good point. Yes I have read those poems in the ABPA mag, I've read all the poems in the ABPA mag.

One bit of advice that I saw in my other reading ; to help enliven the rhymes , rhyme a noun with a verb, instead of two matching verbs or nouns . I thought that was good advice.
Instead of gate with mate...gate with dictate...mate with relate.

Enjambment helps prevent the trap of clanging rhyme, Poems I'm afraid, can easily get a bit tedious with a long stretch of rhyming couplets in which the two lines always make a separate statement. Some of our friends here are going well and I think they would do even better if they learned a bit about the effect of enjambment and caesura. The concepts are not hard to grasp. Ellis Campbell does it all the time, I assume that's one reason he maintains an award winning status with his written stuff.

Another thing which is more subtle and perhaps difficult is to make sure that rhyming word is not the focus of the sentence, that other more colourful or striking expressions occur away from the rhyming word. I think that makes a better flow of the verse.


Neville

On the subject of Epitaphs and Rhyming I once read on a headstone at ghost town cemetery.

Here I lie no wonder I’m dead
This bloody great wagon ran over me head.

Descriptive epitaph and a rhyme as well.

Just thought I would share that with you.

TTFN