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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Poem for Today: Springtime in the Mountains--An Etheree

Springtime in the Mountains

First

Coltsfoot,

Spring beauties,

Waxy bloodroot;

Then lacy toothwort--

Soon after pink phlox,

Purple-fragrant larkspur,

Spicy hidden wild ginger,

Firepinks blaze crimson against green,

White ash traces ghostly between trees.

Winter fades; nature renews; we rejoice.

Etheree, from the website Allpoetry: "The etheree is a little-known poetry format, consisting of ten lines with graduated syllables. It was created about twenty years ago by an Arkansas poet named Etheree Taylor Armstrong.

The first line is a monosyllabic word; the second line has two syllables, and so on, until the tenth line with, ultimately, ten syllables. The most important elements of this format are the etheree structure, coherence (pulling ideas together to create a complete thought) and focusing on imagery."


3 comments:

  1. I like that poem, maybe I'll give it a try.

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  2. It's fun to work with the words, finding those that say what I want and still fit in the syllable count, Janet. Sometimes I write the poem and then go back and re-word it into the etheree form. It's an interesting exercise.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a great poem, Sue. I can see spring unfolding in my head and you did it with very few words. Great job.

    ReplyDelete

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