Home › Fiction Prompt › #TANKATUESDAY Weekly #POETRYCHALLENGE #268 #TasteTheRainbow @ColleenChesebro and #NaPoWriMo Day 5 #MertailPentetope #poetry created by Harmony Kent

#TANKATUESDAY Weekly #POETRYCHALLENGE #268 #TasteTheRainbow @ColleenChesebro and #NaPoWriMo Day 5 #MertailPentetope #poetry created by Harmony Kent

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Hi everyone! 🙂 Today, my poetry is doing double duty: it is a fit for both Colleen’s weekly TankaTuesday challenge and also for Day 5 of the NaPoWriMo April 30-Day challenge. I had some good fun with this!

SO: from NoPoWriMO: Write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature. For example, what does Hercules do when he loses a sock in the dryer? If a mermaid wants to pick up rock-climbing as a hobby, how does she do that? What happens when a mountain troll makes pancakes?

From Tanka Tuesday: Taste the Rainbow syllabic poem. You do not have to write about a rainbow in your poem. Just include a colour in your poem. As ever, we need to avoid ‘ing’ ending words if at all possible.

You can find Colleen’s post HERE.

I’ve chosen to use a new form, which is intended to resemble a mermaids tail (see the diagram). The form I’ve designed is called The Mertail Pentetope and has 15 lines with the following syllable count: 3-4-5-4-3-3-3-2-2-1-1-3-4-2(gap)2-3(gap, gap)3.  I’ve used em dashes to show where the gaps go in the last two lines. This poem has a title and can be in any rhyme format.

Note: If this already exists in some form, I haven’t found it. 

 

XXX

XXXX

XXXXX

XXXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XX

XX

X

X

XXX

XXXX

XX—XX  

XXX——XXX

 

 

 

“A Bolt from the Blue”

~

on the rocks

cerulean

beauty holds her breath

cheeks puffed, face pink

ocean whips

her scaled tail

sailor stares

at this

magic

myth

in

suspicion

the mermaid flips

her tail—and asks

“can you hold——yours as long?“

 

As soon as I read the instructions for NaPoWriMo, I wanted a mermaid practising holding her breath, seated atop wave splashed rocks. And this also meant I could use alternate words for blue as well, such as “cerulean” and “sailor” and “ocean”. Did you know there are over 144 words for different blues? Here are a few of what I found … blue, indigo, cobalt, azure, celeste, sky, cerulean, teal, ocean, lapis, navy, berry, aegean, admiral, denim, sapphire, artic, turquoise, powder, electric, beau, baby, air force, little boy, tiffany, steel, Carolina, Turkish, maya, independence, cornflower, Egyptian, yale, Prussian, space cadet, imperial, royal, sailor,  … and on and on …

I hope you enjoyed this new form of syllabic poetry. Have a lovely day! 🙂

 

© Harmony Kent 2022

 

54 Comments on “#TANKATUESDAY Weekly #POETRYCHALLENGE #268 #TasteTheRainbow @ColleenChesebro and #NaPoWriMo Day 5 #MertailPentetope #poetry created by Harmony Kent”

  7. Fun! I’ve given up on ‘form’ type poems. I know there is another name for them. But they don’t transfer nicely from my documents to WP.

    • Tech seems to get trickier instead of easier as we … ahem … “advance”. I had to put in the em dashes as, otherwise, the spaces kept getting stolen.

      Thanks so much, Jules 💕🙂

  9. Hi Harmony, this is a beautiful poem. I must think about whether I want to write a poem about a colour this week. I’ve been down an African creature rabbit hole lately.

    • Thanks so much, Robbie. You could choose an African colour! I’d love to see that 💕🙂

  11. I love the playful tone of this, Harmony. And John is right, you’re amazing!

  14. You are a poetic genius. Not only did you do a great job with the prompts but also inventing a new form. Loved the blue and list of alternatives. Well done.

    • To often I’m called a genius, lols 😂 I’ll keep rereading this comment! Thanks so much, John 💕🙂

  15. Your poem does look like a mermaid tail! That’s so cool. Clever with the different color of text, too. You outdid yourself on this one, Harmony!

  16. Your creativity and imagination are fabulous, Harmony! I’m pretty sure I’d never, ever be able to come up with a poem about a mermaid and shaped like a mermaid’s tail! I’m always impressed by your work, but this one really stands out to me! Wonderful! 😊💖

    • Awesome! Thanks so much, Marcia. Your words mean a lot. Hugs 💕🙂

  17. Harmony, I loved the poem and how cleverly it’s put together. Blue is also my favorite color, so I loved the visible aspect, too. Bravo!

  18. Blue happens to be my favorite color and I also like mermaids. Love your creativity, Harmony. Thank you for sharing!!

  22. This is a style of poetry I’ve never seen, Harmony. I love it! The shape, the words, the amazing visualization. Just fantastic. And who knew there were so many colors of blue?

    • I looked and looked for something in this form, and in the end came up with this style myself. I’m so thrilled you love the shape, words, and visual. Thanks so much, Jan 💕🙂

  25. I like this, Harmony! Great job.

    Blue is one of my favorite colors. I knew there were lots of words to describe it but some of those I’d not heard of. Interesting you point this out because yesterday I was looking for a specific word to describe a blue sky.

    • Ah, perfect timing! So thrilled you like the poem. Thanks, Joan 💕🙂