New Poetry Form - The Big Boss

I may have invented a new poetic form. It may have been used by other poets, but I can't recall seeing it anywhere else. It certainly seems a bit too good for me to have stumbled upon it all by myself, but I thought I'd codify it here in this blog post, so other poets can have a go at doing it too. I call it 'The Big Boss', because, well, it's my form, and I can call it what I like. It goes like this:

• 4 stanzas, 7 lines in each stanza
• 4 syllables in the first six lines of each stanza, and 6 syllables in the final line
• rhyme scheme is ABCBDBE, FGHGIGE, JKLKMKE, NOPOQOE.

Here are a couple of examples of Big Boss Poems. See if you can give it a go yourself (you can adjust the syllable count in some lines in order to maintain a consistent beat). I've found it to be a very effective technique when writing for younger children.

Tell it to the Dog

If you have had

an awful day

and all your woes

won’t go away

and no one wants

to come and play,

just tell it to the dog.

If everybody

picks on you

and all your plans

have fallen through;

if you feel lonely,

sad and blue,

just tell it to the dog.

They do not judge.

They understand.

They rub your leg.

They lick your hand.

If you feel lost

in no-man’s land

just tell it to the dog.

They keep your secrets

safe within.

They don’t care if

you lose or win.

So turn that frown

into a grin

and tell it to the dog!

 

The Day the Poet Came

The windows burped,

the hamster flew,

the walls spun round,

the grass turned blue,

things happened that

we never knew

the day the poet came.

 

The sky fell in,

the clouds dispersed,

the devils smiled,

the angels cursed,

the world inhaled,

began to burst

the day the poet came.

 

My desk became

a sailing boat,

an oak tree grew

inside my coat,

my friend got married

to a goat

the day the poet came.

 

The carpet turned

into a bath,

I think I saw

a pink giraffe,

but the strangest thing:

our teacher laughed

the day the poet came!