Ronnie McGinn's Poetry Page

Our poem this week is a Roundel from Frances O'Keeffe of The Douglas Writers Group.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with modern poetry and thankfully it is growing in popularity on a daily basis, we should not overlook traditional forms of poetry which can often be quite challenging to a poet, take for example this week's roundel poem.

The roundel is an English form of poetry that the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) derived in the Nineteenth Century.

A variation of the French rondeau form, it is a lyric poem of eleven lines, with the first part of the first line repeated as a refrain in the fourth and eleventh lines.

It has three stanzas and its rhyme scheme is as follows: A B A R; B A B; A B A R; where R is the refrain.

Swinburne used his invention as freely as others in his time used the sonnet.

Somehow or other a roundel sequence is always well worth reading and rereading.

Another cup of tea

Another cup of tea? So glad you could drop by
To loan your holiday DVD,
We'll watch it later, he and I.
Another cup of tea?

Thanks for pointing out to me,
The teapot seems to have gone dry.
You're not in any rush, I see.

The hostess sits and wonders why -
As guests stay on interminably -
It takes so long to say goodbye.
Another cup of tea? >© Frances O'Keeffe