On January 11th, 1956, W. H. Auden was apparently teaching a workshop in “Form and Style in Poetry” for the Educational Department of the YM/YWHA in New York City. He seems to have caused to have copies made of this worksheet, which I assume were passed out, the point of which apparently was to show in one poem all possible variations, with allowable substitutions, of the iambic trimeter line:
AUDENESQUE
Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem "Audenesque."
Spring is not arriving
This year – winter is still
Alive -- it thrives, driving
April against her will
Beyond frosted windows,
Back to southern climes
Lying in warm windrows
That bask in fairer times.
Here are some others:
I AM BIX: A STUDY
By Ruth E. Harrison
What do I keep longest—
a drop caught in a web?
Of human ties the strongest
bright link will ease and ebb.
Small child, know what you can,
given life and being—
Parents may lend wisdom,
as thinking does, and seeing.
The author said of this poem, “This doesn't really count, as I'm sure you'll tell me--that approx rhyme [consonance] in stanza one and perhaps more trochees than are permissible, but I just wanted you to know I was having a good time w/ you and Mr. Auden. Thanks!”
AUDENESQUE
She was always willing,
And he couldn’t resist,
Like chocolate cream filling,
Absolut with a twist.
A full week's vacation,
Sunsets, money and wine—
She was like Penn Station,
And he, the 5:09.
By Tad Richards
This poem has an extra stanza…I don’t know why:
AUDENESQUE
Tearful I wrote a ditty
About the love I lacked
The form was less than witty
The content less than crap.
While I sat there and snuffled
About my griefs and pains
Miz Luck sniffed and shuffled
Her marked-up deck again.
This time, you might know it,
My fortune laughed at me:
“You need not be a poet
To enjoy misery.”
By Clarinda Harriss
SONG FOR ONONGWA
Mother taught me patience
If sometimes she revealed
The brow's provoked striations;
Grace on the battlefield.
Betwixt lively tempers
Magic welled from her calm;
Bedded on new embers
I soaked up nightlong warm.
By Uche Ogbuji,
I got this letter: 15 March 2015
Hi, Lew,
I am a student of Sam Gwynn's (just so's you have a way to remember me). I spent some quality time with Auden this weekend, and I found [your blog posting] while I was trying to get some idea of how many poems in the world have been entitled "Audenesque.”
I'm sure you're not still dwelling on your call for poems, but it's new for me today, so thank you. Criticism is most welcome, even desired, but not expected. :)
From a sincere fan and student who carries The Book of Forms wherever she goes,
Casey Ford
Lamar University
The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback.
AFTER “MUSE'E DE BEAUX ARTS”
Seeing something shocking—
a boy falls from the sky—
the ploughman keeps ploughing;
ships in the harbor drift.
The Old Masters knew this:
humans suffer the same
now as they have always,
forsaken by their friends.
By Casey Ford
TRYING TO POEM, DISTRACTED BY HENS
Gossips peck at cookies;
their claws out over tea.
Divorced, demeaned, sniping;
screechy, astringent notes
of tunes squawked for ages,
songs that roosters ignore,
cackling about nothing
and shitting where they eat.
By Casey Ford
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