Words of Redemption

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Robin keeps on making up poetic styles, and I keep on writing poems for them. That’s right, it’s time again for Pensieve’s Poetic License, a monthly poetry carnival for the criminally insane.

Oh wait, that’s not this one. PPL is for the mostly sane¹.

This month’s theme is Diamante, yet another poetic form which does not exist in the copy of “Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry” that I always keep close at hand for such poetic emergencies as this. And yes, I am purposefully trying to sound pretentious. I do have a copy of Sound and Sense, but it’s a college holdover I keep on my bookshelf to make me appear thoughtful and intelligent.

And besides, poetry without a touch of pretension is like a baby with a clean diaper. No one wants that…

Okay, Diamante. Not to be confused with a once-popular independent record label in California², Diamante is a seven-line poem about two opposite subjects. It also looks like a diamond when centered. Here’s a content-breakdown from Robin:

subject

two adjectives describing the subject

three words ending in “ing” telling about the subject

four words, first two describe subject, last two describe its opposite

three words ending in “ing” telling about the opposite

two adjectives describing the opposite

opposite

I must say that Robin picks ‘em well. It was both challenging and fun to write this poem. I love the presence of opposites in the style and the subtle shift from subject to opposite in the middle of line four. I think a key to reading a Diamante poem is an awareness and recognition of this shift from the second word to the third word in the fourth line. For example, in the poem I wrote, those words are “preparation” and “action.”

What’s more, the balance of opposites and their dependence on one another for significance (i.e. “Good” has little meaning without “Evil”) is a pretty fascinating topic to explore. I could never do it justice, but that’s about what I had in mind when I wrote my poem.

Now I really am getting pretentious. Poetry time, for once a serious entry:

mountain

hopeful, majestic

redeeming, uplifting, connecting

inspiration, preparation, action, restoration

falling, failing, repeating

atavistic, genuine

valley

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Then go to Robin’s page and check out all the other poems.

Popularity: 24% [?]

1. I kid Robin… that’s for pointing out all my typos [↩]
2. The word sounded really familiar to me and I realized why when I saw this. Diamante owned Tooth and Nail, MXPX’s label in the early days and, for some odd “brains are funny” kind of reason, I remember the logo from their CDs [↩]

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