literature

Reflection

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Literature Text

swift blurs part rain sheets
shades haste, ford drenched paths
wait men, form deep roots
time falls where it will.
 
Type of Poem: Jueju
Prompt: Parallelism

A jueju is a quatrain (4-lined poem) and more specifically a matched pair of couplets, with either 5 or 7 syllables per line.  This is an eastern style of poetry, like a haiku or tanku, and actually started as a shortened version of a yuefu poem.  The difficulty with creating English versions of these style of poems is that our language is not tonal, which creates a language barrier in creating the proper flow.  Think of it like how a sonnet uses stress/unstress syllables.  We don't have tonal language so how do we incorporate it?  One suggestion I found was to use only monosyllabic words, which are "imagistic", and not participles (often verbs made into adjectives: "rising thing" or "boiled thing").  There are a whole heaping helping of additional rules, so if you really desire learning the proper way to write this poem, definitely check out that link.  I chose to make it more difficult by further applying word for word parallelism in lines 1 and 2 followed by oppositional form in line 3.  Even if you choose not to, it is typical to have line 1 introduce a visual scene (a lake, a tree, a room), line 2 extend the imagery, line 3 provide a twist or turning to the scene, and line 4 provide the conclusion.  In summary, this is a very difficult form wrapped up in a deceptively simple package.

For the reasons listed above, I don't particularly like writing eastern poetry.  Even when I come up with something that feels evocative or flowing, I know there will be something lacking always.  It almost makes me want to learn another language!  Nevertheless, practicing with forms like this is really good for me, especially, as I lean more towards narrative poetry and less descriptive.  It's a fresh breath of air to remind myself that things can be beautiful for themselves and not for any additional meaning you try and give them.  Hence the poem above, which is about taking a moment sometimes and just experiencing the life in front of you rather than taking the harder path and losing yourself along the way. 

This is my third submission for the December Form Challenge from ProjectDFC. You can read the rest of my entries here.

The Jueju was not listed in either of the previous challenges.

© 2014 - 2024 TheDorsai
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Parsat's avatar
Liked your commentary on the jueju form. I hope to write an essay about it myself sometime soon.