Pan--1st Draft

[bairnsidhe]

 

Pan is for Panic

 

When nobody knows

How to pin you down

And so they trip over

Themselves instead.

 

Pan is for Pantheon

 

The long long list of

Virtues and vices

Deified into orderly lists

Of people you might want.

 

Pan is for Pandemic

 

Everywhere and all at once

Things they overlook are

Now growing strong and

They are outnumbered.

 

Pan is for Pandemonium

 

Chaos’s favored child

The heart and soul of a storm

Riotous rout, a tumultuous

Outpouring of songs

 

Pan is for Pan

 

The great goat-horned god

Wildling of wild woods

Companion of nymph and satyr

Sexual being unbound

 

By restriction of rule of law

A rustic ruler of his own

Nature and nurture.

Battle blooded with gods

 

Child of trickster Hermes,

Fearsome to small minds

His greatest trick echoes

Across the sea at Paxi

 

Pan has never yet died,

He lives in the hearts of

His many soul-kin, lovers

Who seek where they find.

 

Pan is for All

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

When you set up a consistent pattern and then break it, that can throw readers off balance. In a poem about Pan, a certain amount of chaos may be needed, but you've got those regular quatrains alternating with single lines for so long that the switch toward the end is jarring. I suggest either keeping it consistent throughout, or adding enough variation earlier that the later change isn't standing alone.

Re: Thoughts

[bairnsidhe]

Grr, Pan can be a butt to try to balance. I think I'll go back and try for a build-up. Line, Quatrain, line, quatrain quatrain, line, and so on. Think that'll work for emphasizing the chaos without breaking too many brains?

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Grr, Pan can be a butt to try to balance. <<

;) Wait until you try writing Loki or Eris. Who also get into genderqueer territory.

>> I think I'll go back and try for a build-up. Line, Quatrain, line, quatrain quatrain, line, and so on. Think that'll work for emphasizing the chaos without breaking too many brains? <<

That's a good idea. If you vary it toward the beginning, that should avoid a too-regular pattern building up.

It sounds like you've got the basics of poetry down, and you're starting to get into theory. There isn't as much written on this topic, so a lot of it is learned by trial and error. If I remember right, I hit this phase around college and a few years after; I'd been writing poetry since I was six and writing it regularly since junior high. But for structure, the best I found -- aside from reading great poems -- was exploring different forms. Do that a while, then try your hand at designing a few of your own using motifs you like.

Re: Thoughts

[bairnsidhe]

>>Wait until you try writing Loki or Eris. Who also get into genderqueer territory.<<

Oh heck no. Those two can stay in prose, dammit. Life-mate adds Bacchus to the list of crazy deities that will make my poetry complex.

>>It sounds like you've got the basics of poetry down, and you're starting to get into theory. There isn't as much written on this topic, so a lot of it is learned by trial and error.<<

Yeah, that's about where I am right now. I like poetry, but some of the underlying things are tricky for me to pin down what's going on where.

>>If I remember right, I hit this phase around college and a few years after; I'd been writing poetry since I was six and writing it regularly since junior high.<<

Yup, fitting the pattern here too. I'm looking up more structured forms right now, because it seems like a good way to use "training wheels" for things like meter and stress-unstressed syllables.

Thanks for all the encouragement!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Oh heck no. Those two can stay in prose, dammit. Life-mate adds Bacchus to the list of crazy deities that will make my poetry complex.<<

LOL yes.

>>Yeah, that's about where I am right now. I like poetry, but some of the underlying things are tricky for me to pin down what's going on where.<<

You'll get the hang of it. Coming at it sideways, instead of directly on the poetry stuff, I found linguistics and psychology helpful too.

>>Yup, fitting the pattern here too. I'm looking up more structured forms right now, because it seems like a good way to use "training wheels" for things like meter and stress-unstressed syllables.<<

Exactly.

You might look at sonnet variations. Most are rhymed and metered, but a few aren't. When you start from a single base and then change one thing at a time, it's easier to see how that affects the results. Frex, two basic patterns are three quatrains and a couplet, or an octet and a sestet. The first is good for beginning-middle-end and moral, the second for point and counterpoint. So you can suit the structure to the storytelling. Then if you switch to a shorter one like the indriso, you can experiment with how it condenses ideas.

>> Thanks for all the encouragement! <<

You're welcome! I like poetry. If I encourage poets, there will be more and better poems.