NaPoWriMo Prompt 17

By on Apr 17, 2015 in Blog

Ancient Italian theater ruins

“Dal Teatro Marcello al Portico d’Ottavia” by Giuseppe Moscato (https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinomoscato/)

Happy Friday! On day 17 of the NaPoWriMo challenge, “O” is for “Ottava rima.” Unlike most western poetry forms, this Italian form is syllable based, rather than being based on metric feet. The poem consists of eight-line stanzas, with each line containing 11 syllables. In addition, the form uses the rhyme scheme ABABABCC. The page about the form at Poetry.com also contains links to several examples. The end result is a poem that feels more like natural speech and yet sounds more musical.

Feel free to share your poem (or a link to your poem) in the comments.

The NaPoWriMo challenge is to write 30 poems in 30 days during April, National Poetry Month. For more, visit the official site of the challenge: NaPoWriMo.net.

About

Alyce Wilson is the editor of Wild Violet and in her copious spare time writes humor, non-fiction, fiction and poetry and infrequently keeps an online journal. Her first chapbook, Picturebook of the Martyrs; her e-book/pamphlet, Stay Out of the Bin! An Editor's Tips on Getting Published in Lit Mags ; her book of essays and columns, The Art of Life; her humorous nonfiction ebook, Dedicated Idiocy: How Monty Python Fandom Changed My Life, and her newest poetry collection, Owning the Ghosts, can all be ordered from her Web site, AlyceWilson.com. In late 2019, she published a volume of poetry by her third great-grandfather, Reading's Physician Poet: Poems by Dr. James Meredith Mathews, which also contains genealogical information about the Mathews family. She lives with her husband and son in the Philadelphia area and takes far too many photos of her handsome, creative son, nicknamed Kung Fu Panda.