Friday, June 10, 2011

Double Dactyl - the next generation

Over at Nige's place I appear to have accidentally invented a new poetic form - the 'Double Dactyl Plus', with this poem:

Double Dactyl E-Coli Theory

Benedict Cumberbatch
brought a cucumber back
from his vacation
in Las Palmas de Gran.

Engelbert Humperdink
mugged him and nicked the thing,
Took it to Krautland;
That’s how it began.

(To explain: previous Double Dactyl poems had merely rhymed the last line of each stanza, whereas the new 'Double Dactyl Plus' form rhymes AABC, DDEC, where AA and DD are, at a minimum, dactylic half-rhymes, and rather than that business about single-word dactyls in the second stanza and nonsense first lines, there must instead be at least one mention of a cucumber.)

UPDATE: Here's another one, which abides strictly by the rules, including the cucumber one:

Incident at Blue Peter Presenters Function (Double Dactyl Plus)

Cucumber sandwiches
for high tea at Claridges!
All spesh’ly laid on for
the Blue Peter crew!

Valerie Singleton
burnt all her fingers on
a hot buttered crumpet,
And now she might sue.



FURTHER UPDATE: This one is a Double Dactyl Plus Plus, combining both the orginal Hecht/Pascal rules and my additional rules:

Boxing Commentator Salad Poem

‘Rumpeta rumpeta,’
said Harry Carpenter,
Making his way to
The greengrocer’s stall.

But then he was struck by a
cucumberphobia,
And now he can’t eat
any green things at all.


(Meaningless opening line: check.
Subject's name in second line: check.
Single word double-dactyl in second stanza: check.

Plus:
AABC DDEC rhyme scheme: check.
Mention of cucumber: check.)

3 comments:

Gareth Williams said...

I think it's safe to say you've totally mastered the poetic form you invented. Admirable.

Brit said...

The trick is to write the poem first, and then decide the rules afterwards to make it a pain for everyone else. I have no doubt that's how all poetic forms were invented.

Adelephant said...

I imagine the cucumber mentions can be quite restrictive. Could you compose one about public sector pensions, please?