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Showing posts from August, 2011

Writing Queron

Queron is a new poetic form I developed during the November 2009 Poem-A-Day Challenge hosted by Robert Lee Brewer at Writersdigest.com. Influenced by Rilke’s advice to “live the questions now,” I developed queron to support the way my mind engages questions—which is what it does when I write poems. Counting syllables slows me down into a state of attentive curiosity. Interweaving rhymes mirror the way the mind flashes back and forth as it grapples with questions. The stanza breaks offer opportunities to shift the perspective of the poem and consider the central question from different angles. The ending couplet can offer a sense of closure—whether an answer or a surrender to not having an answer. Writing queron requires attention to meter, rhyme and content. Here’s the recipe: Seventeen lines are grouped into three quintets and a final couplet. Each line has an equal number of syllables. Rhymes interweave in this scheme: ababa bcbca cdcdb dd. The poem includes a question.