The Alouette, or: Form verses creativity

Sangeetha & David’s new poetry project

Once upon a time, two poets who’d never met in person spontaneously began writing verses back and forth to one another over the Internet. Their first poetry project took them some nine months: a 100 verse Hyakuin.

Once they’d completed their oeuvre, the two decided to continue their creative journey together; and Sangeetha came up with a fun new idea, which David loved – to explore different poetic forms together, working through the Alphabet from ‘A’ to ‘Z’.

Every week, for twenty-six weeks beginning in January of the year 2022, they would take turns selecting poetic forms beginning with the letter corresponding to that particular week (1=A, 2=B, etc., etc.) and write poems to one another using that form.

David suggested they call their new project ‘Form verses creativity’, and so it began.

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A for Alouette

Sangeetha’s Alouette to David

Are you free my friend
to play until the end
a game of words and rhymes
laced all together
in fun and feather
feelings that come to our minds

We'll write to rejoice
life's true little joys
that make people want to smile
want to start to dance
as our words romance
with warm hearts for just a while

David’s response to Sangeetha

It's so clear to me
that we'll always be
inspired by one another.
The spell's not yet through,
so, we'll continue...
Let's craft our magic further!

True partnership flows,
as we've come to know...
It's what we've kept our eyes on.
Sync'd up stanzas hum;
why need their end come?
Bright glow ~ Endless horizons!

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Alouette?

• Two or more stanzas of 6 lines each
• Meter: 5, 5, 7, 5, 5, 7
• Rhyme Scheme: a, a, b, c, c, b

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Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!