Verse Play to Premiere in June

Valentino: a play in verse, written, directed, and produced by David Wisehart, will receive its world premiere production at the Hollywood Fringe Festival June 17-27, 2010.

Vocabulary Limericks

I've started posting a series of original limericks on my SAT tutoring blog, The Grammar Guy.

These limericks are mnemonics for students learning SAT vocabulary words.

Here are words I've posted limericks for:

ABASE
ABBEY
ABDICATE

Ottava Rima

Ottava rima was a favorite verse form of the Italian Renaissance poets. It developed out of the troubadour tradition and was first popularized by Giovanni Boccaccio in such long poems as Teseida and Filostrato. Many of the great Italian epic poems used ottava rima, including Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore, and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Byron’s Don Juan is a good example of ottava rima in English.

My own verse drama Valentino was written in 2,008 lines of ottava rima. You can read a sample on my website.

After toying with the idea of writing Valentino in rhyming couplets—in the tradition of Molière—I instead chose ottava rima for its variety, flexibility, and its historical connection to Renaissance Italy: one of my characters, Lucrezia Borgia, was a patronness of Ariosto’s, and she is mentioned favorably in Orlando Furioso.

The form of ottava rima is eight lines with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. In English, the lines are usually iambic pentameter.

For a long poem (or verse drama) ottava rima has an advantage over rhyming couplets, in that the alternating rhymes (a-b-a-b-a-b) are less predictable than rhyming every odd line with the even line that follows (a-a-b-b-c-c).

Ottava rima takes advantage of the rhymed couplet at the conclusion of the stanza. Because the final two lines rhyme, the last word of the stanza is highly anticipated. This is a perfect way to bring a long thought to a close. Often the first six lines will develop an idea which the final line will hammer home.

Here is an example of ottava rima from Valentino. This two-stanza monologue occurs at the end of Act Two, Scene 1. Lucrezia Borgia is recovering from a miscarriage after being poisoned by an ex-lover, Francesco Orsini. Her brother, Valentino (Cesare Borgia), has just escaped a trap set for him by Francesco. Lucrezia tries to delay Francesco from pursuing her brother. Francesco draws his sword, threatening to rape and kill her. When she mocks him, he commands her to hold her tongue.

Lucrezia replies:

My words can save you from the other side.
I’m standing between you and your Creator.
But if my brother hears that I have died,
He’ll stop at nothing, kill you now or later.
You may try hiding, but he’ll have your hide.
My brother always knew you were a traitor —
Your colors are more Ghibelline than Guelph.
But if you kill me, then you kill yourself.
He found you out, and he will do you in.
My brother is a beast you’ll never tame.
He’ll kill you first, and then he’ll kill your kin.
He’ll put your field and family to flame.
He’ll leave them crying, dying in the din.
I swear he’ll burn all books that bear your name,
Till all your dreams are buried in the sod.
My brother is the bloody hand of God.

You’ll notice, of course, that the rhyme scheme follows the ottava rima form.

First stanza:

a – side
b – Creator
a – died
b – later
a – hide
b – traitor
c – Guelph
c – yourself

Second stanza:

a – in
b – tame
a – kin
b – flame
a – din
b – name
c – sod
c – God

Also, notice that the strongest lines come at the end of the stanzas, and that the rhyming couplets add rhetorical force.

The message of the first stanza is summarized in the line: “But if you kill me, then you kill yourself.” The word "Guelph" anticipates the word "yourself."

The second stanza builds on that idea, extending the threat to Francesco’s home, his family, and to the very memory of his existence, ending with the summation: “My brother is the bloody hand of God.” The word "sod" anticipates the word "God."

So we see that ottava rima can work well for dramatic monologue. Can ottava rima also be used in dialogue?

I’ll discuss that next.

Verse Drama Contest

The Poetry Foundation is offering a $10,000 prize and a staged reading for the best new verse drama.

This is of course a fantastic idea, and I hope the prize goes to a worthy play.

I will not be entering my own verse drama, Valentino, as it does not conform to the contest rules (Valentino will be published next month, and my play is longer than two hours).

So I can honestly wish all of you other verse dramatists the best of luck!

Rhyme Quiz

Which of the following words form a rhyming pair?

(Identify each correct answer.)

A. said / laid
B. perish / varnish
C. bout / about
D. love / us
E. rye / replied
F. polymath / polygraph
G. slant / went
H. tree / gallantry
I. stealing / feelings
J. atrophy / philosophy
K. civilization / immunization
L. leaf / relief
M. tough / though
N. wish / radish
O. indecipherable / rabble
P. cup / abrupt
Q. eye / I
R. lease / please
S. house / south
T. stick / cleric
U. open / then
V. ring / enabling
W. female / emails
X. arrange / orange
Y. (all of the above)
Z. (none of the above)

Answer (highlight space below):

Z. (none of the above)

If you answered correctly and understand why the other choices were wrong, congratulations, you're ready to start rhyming.

If you answered incorrectly, or highlighted the answer without taking the quiz, then you should read the previous post (What Is a Rhyme?) before moving on.

If you disagree with the answer, and want to toss around nonsense phrases like “slant rhyme,” “eye rhyme,” and “near rhyme,” then read the previous post twice.

What Is a Rhyme?

"Rhyme is the identity in sound of an accented vowel in a word...and of all consonantal and vowel sounds following it; with a difference in the sound of the consonant immediately preceding the accented vowel."
— Clement Wood, The Complete Rhyming Dictionary

The Craft of Poetry

This blog will focus on the craft of poetry.

Special attention will be given to poetic forms. My focus will be on how to create the best work within the strict limitations of rhyme and meter.

Early posts will focus on the basics, paving the way for more advance techniques.

Although I've written in most of the popular poetic forms, my expertise is in ottava rima. Over the course of three years (2001-2003) I wrote Valentino: a play in verse, a 2008-line poem in ottava rima, composed in the form of a verse drama.

Valentino will be published in January 2007, and has been selected for the Fifth Annual College of the Canyons New Works Festival.

For more on this project, read my Valentino blog.

A sample scene from the play is available at my website.