You are not alone...

 Feeling the pain?  Here are some students' reactions to writing hendecasyllabics from previous years!

Hendecasyllabics

Your assignment this week is to compose a two-line English hendecasyllabic poem.  To inspire you, here is part of a hendecasyllabic poem by Robert Frost:

Water came to rebuke the too clear water.

One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple

Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,

Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?

Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Latin 302: Caprese Couplet (An Exercise in Hendecasyllabics)

Latin 302: Caprese Couplet (An Exercise in Hendecasyllabics): 

Mozzarella, tomatoes, handful basil,/  

olive oil and balsamic, salt and pepper.

--Katherine's zen-like meditation on insalata caprese...

Hendecasyllabic Frustration

Oh, this syllable counting drives me crazy!
What's the point of composing ancient meters?
I don't want to go mad like poor Catullus
or write tortuous verse like boring Horace.

Anna said:  this was unbelievably challenging.  This is a poem about grapefruit.

You lose, why do you try or shy from peeling?
Peel away the rind. Long strips, gooey, freedom.

supposed to be:

u u // - u u // - u // - u // - u
- u // - u u // - u // - u // - u