The Pillowman

I went yesterday to see the Singapore Repertory Theatre's production of "The Pillowman" by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. Described as a dark comedy, "The Pillowman" is dark indeed, not designed to give you that "happy ever after" sort of feeling after the play is done. The play is about a writer who writes horrid little tales, largely of children being abused and killed. But in his town, children are being killed in similar ways. The police bring him in for questioning. Then the writer learns that his brother is in the next room, also suspected of the crime. So who is the killer? And what was his motive? At the end it is a story about stories, about the nature of happy endings. It has rightly won award after award, on Broadway and in the West End, and has received review after positive review (here's the NYT piece) .

I thought it well acted, with Adrian Pang, Michael Corbidge, Daniel Jenkins and Shane Mardjuki making up the 4-man cast. But clearly, Michael Corbidge as Katurian K. Katurian stood out for me, as did Daniel Jenkins' endearing portrayal of his simple-minded brother.

But somehow there is a sense of deja vu I get about the play. The two detectives (played by Adrian Pang and Shane Mardjuki) remind me of the two detectives in "The Kindly Ones" by Neil Gaiman who turn out to be Loki and Puck. And is it a coincidence that one of these two policemen is named after another Shakespearan faerie spirit, Ariel? Likewise, some of the stories seem to be vaguely familiar. Ah, well.

Just before the play, we went to Canele for tea. This patisserie/chocolaterie is anything but dark. The first thing which catches the eye upon entry is the bowls of meringues - vanilla, rose and violet - upon the counter. Part of the Les Amis group, this little shop sells delectable desserts. I had a green tea cake mousse which was light, not too sweet and slid ever so gently down my throat. The only similarity to the play was probably that it was shaped like a little pillow. Anyway, I enjoyed it so much that I went back after the play to buy this small little box of macaroons.

Poetry Exercise No. 11: Ottava Rima

Ottava Rima: Iambic pentameter, 8 lines worth. Rhyme scheme: ABABABCC.

My Orlando poem:

One day an orphan came to our front door

Bedraggled; hungry; a sad, sorry cat.

Big eyes and ears; a small warm orange paw;

Just looking for a home, a meal, a pat.

So- now Orlando is alone no more,

His fur is thick; his tummy round and fat.

This mischief maker in our hearts has grown

We're happy in our house he has his home.

Maybe a little overly alliterated in the last two lines but it just came out like that.

The last assignment was the Spencerian Stanza, eight lines worth of iambic pentameter with a nineth line of iambic heptameter (or an alexandrine)! I have to say that I don't think iambic pentameter is quite my thing. I find the lines a little long to construct. Give me the tetrameter anytime. Anyway, I have decided to cheat a little by varying the above verse. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCBCC. So here goes:

One day an orphan came to our front door
Bedraggled; hungry; a sad, sorry cat.
Big eyes and ears; a small warm orange paw;
Just looking for a home, a meal, a pat.
But now Orlando's getting round and fat
With lots of company; he's not alone,

(In fact sometimes he's quite the little brat)
Oh mischief maker, in our hearts you've grown,
We are so glad that its with us that you have made your home.

Thank heavens! Now I can move on to the next exercise.

Poetry Exercise No. 11: Rhyme Royal

Rhyme Royal is a seven-line verse in iambic pentameter, with a rhyming scheme ABABBCC. Surprisingly, I found this rather difficult. Perhaps because after the last few exercises, I’m no longer used to the rhythm of iambic feet. I started off writing something about Orlando jumping around in the house, but it kept on coming out in anapaestic feet instead. In the end, I had to change tack. So after many false starts, here is my verse:

The garden plants grow greenly in the sun
The smell of coffee fills the morning air
No work to do or errands he must run
A cat sits on the cushion on the chair
He sits and thinks, “Ah yes! The day is fair!”
With nothing else to do but sit and chat,
Life is so easy when you are a cat!

After spending so much time on this, I've decided to leave Ottava Rima to another day.

Poetry Exercise No. 11: Open Forms

We have moved on from rhyme, to stanzaic forms. There are different types of forms – open forms, where the overall length is left to the poet, and closed forms which follow a set pattern and length.

The assignment does not hold much interest (at least to me). For each open form, we are supposed to write a poem which describes the form. I think I prefer writing about my dear little cats who are, after all, an endless source of interest and inspiration.

So here we go with the first open form :

Terza Rima :
Tercets are 3-line stanzas. Terza Rima can be any length but the rhyme scheme is ABA, BCB, CDC, and so on till the last stanza which is four lines long, in the format DEDE. My attempt, called "Feeding Time":

When evening comes, it's time to eat
We walk out with a jar of food
The cats rush back in, from the street.

Wait politely - I wish they would -
But urgently they beg and plead,
And push each other - oh, so rude!

Finally, they begin to feed
Heads all down, they keep munching on
Heaven knows, it's really just greed -
In five minutes, it has all gone!

Quatrains :
4-line stanzas. Can be cross-rhymed, or ABAB; envelope-rhymed, or ABBA. The Rubai is a quatrain form from Persia, with a rhyme scheme of AABA. I did not know that this famous verse was from the Ruba'yat of Omar Khayyam (translated by Edward Fitzgerald, in iambic pentameter to boot):

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Alas, my own effort cannot compare:

Our Casey cat often treats us with hauteur
We ask her to sit, to come and drink water
But unless she gets her favourite treats
She only obeys should it be her pleasure.

(Note: use of weak endings. Also, pleasure is not a perfect rhyme - assonance?)

Poetry Exercise No. 11 will be continued in my next post. There is still Rhyme Royal, and Ottava Rima to go! Plus the Spencerian Stanza!

Poetry Exercise No. 10 : Finding rhymes

We are now supposed to find rhymes for two words: "girl" and "martyr".

Here's what I got for girl: curl, churl, earl, unfurl, hurl, merle, pearl, swirl, whirl, twirl

And for martyr (not sure whether some count): barter, carter, charter, darter, garter, parter, partner, quarter, water, encarta, pinata (ok this is prob not too correct).

Here's a rhyming dictionary if anyone wants to check.

Poetry Exercise No. 8: Syllabic Verse

Instead of counting beats or feet, count syllables only. Examples of syllabic verse include the Haiku.

The exercise:

Part 1: Alternate lines of seven and five syllables, two quatrains worth.

Torrential tropical rain
Against my window
I feel a chill in the air
And miss my warm bed

In the afternoon it slows
To a light drizzle
The umbrellas still stay out
The dark clouds remain

Part 2: Two stanzas of verse with the following number of syllables in the successive lines - 3, 6, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 6, 3

On my bed
I find short coarse white fur
Cats
Can’t keep them off
Who knows what they trek on my sheets
From the garden
Or
From the wide world outside
What to do…

They do say
Cats are clean animals
And
These born hunters
Keep the roaches and the lizards down
And so I brush
Off
The fur from my sheets and
Pat their heads

This is the last poetry-writing exercise on metre. Moving on to rhyme!

p.s. Due to popular demand please find below one photo of cats on my bed.

Yes, hobbits once walked the earth!

I take a break from poetry writing to bring you this exciting news: hobbits could have once existed! Never mind that I found this out when reading this news report saying that anthropologists are questioning this very finding.

Poetry Exercise No. 7 : Accentual-Alliterative Verse

Ok, so what is that? Iambic pentameter (and its friends) represent the world of "accentual-syllabic" verse. "Accentual-alliterative" verse is from ye olde Anglo-Saxon poetry tradition, where the accents fall on alliterated words, save for the last. Fry calls this "Bang Bang Bang Crash". The exercise is to write about 18-20 lines (I ended up with 16) on the subject of what you want to eat/don't want to eat, right this minute. I had just finished dinner when I started on this, so the poem is really about the happy days in the Residence Inn dining area eating uncooked veggies and salsa and tacos for dinner.

Of my favourite foods I fantasise when overseas
Of chilli crab, and chicken rice I dream
Memories of mee siam cause me to drool
And longing for laksa leaves me weak.

Of nonya nosh I’ll never get too much of
A bit of sambal belacan on the side
I’d love to have loads of lemak gravy too
The rich rempah in it really is a treat.

No boiled brussel sprouts or broccoli for dinner
No burnt bacon, cold bangers, or mash
No undercooked hor d’ouevres which don’t excite me
And throw out the tough and stringy meat

Oh, when I want a wantan or roti prata
Or pine for prawn paste chicken (har cheong kai)
I find these delicious dishes don’t come by easy
Outside the sunny shores of Singapore.

The Road Not Taken

Into the Woods
Originally uploaded by Taking5

"The Ode Less Travelled" is, of course, an allusion to this famous poem by Robert Frost. Given my current interests in poetry, I looked up the poem:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Obviously, I am far more familiar with the end of the poem than any other part of it. And of course, the impression one gets from the last two lines is that the writer has been rewarded by striking out on his own, rather than by following the crowd. So it was quite revealing to re-read the whole and realise that (as this analysis states) that it is not evident that the second road was really less travelled and secondly, that the writer may not have benefited from his choice! Indeed, it would seem that the poem is about the "might-have-beens" which arise from the different choices which we make in life rather than an ode to individualism.

Understanding poetry

I'm still reading "The Ode Less Travelled", but have also started surfing the internet for poetry sites. Here's a nice one which offers a "Course in 8 Lessons" to understanding poetry.

It complements Stephen Fry's book quite nicely - Fry emphasises writing, and teaches metric, rhyme and forms. This one looks at metaphor, imagery and how to read a poem.

Poetry Exercise No. 6

This time the exercise is on the use of ternary feet (ie, three beats instead of two to a foot - eg ditty-dum, dum-ditty and the like.)

The exercise is in two parts. First, to write directions (to your home) using some anapestic hexameters (anapaests go 3 beats to a foot, stress on the 3rd beat i.e. ditty-dum, hexameters indicate a total of 6 feet/stresses per line).

However I do not intend to give directions to my house on-line! So I will give directions to Raffles Hotel instead (from the east coast) :-)

It's a drive down the ECP exit at Rochor Road, filtering left
Watch the hot air balloon as it makes its ascent; then turn left once again.
You're on North Bridge Road, driving past Liang Seah and Purvis Streets; stop at the lights!
With a turn into Seah street you're there and so welcome to Raffles Hotel.
(If you find these directions just cannot compare with a map then click here)

The second part of the exercise is to write some dactylic pentameter (dactyls go dum-ditty i.e. stress is on the first of three beats) on the subject of cows. The first four dactyls should be followed by a spondee, i.e. two stressed accents.

Once there were two lads named Jerry and Ben who made ice cream!
Black and white cows can be seen on each pint of their product,
Free from recombinant growth hormone cows gave such fresh milk,
It's no surprise that these guys made a pile from their dessert!

Now that's making me hungry for ice cream!