Last week, I smiled when I read Molly’s post, where she shared her efforts writing Wordy 30s, a poetic form shared with her by another Poetry Friday friend, Mary Lee Hahn, who found it, I believe, here.
In short, the form is simple: write a poem with exactly 30 letters.
Wait, that isn’t really simple – to share a complete thought in just 30 letters? And there’s one more rule. Every line must have exactly the same number of letters. So – 6 lines with letters each, or 5 lines with 6 letters each, or even three lines with ten letters each. If you are a Wordle-devotee like me, you will possibly see that this is a bit like wordle-poetry – except instead of guessing the five letter word (or six, or whatever), you need to find a way to make the words say something. And, because it’s poetry, they should be considered, organised and, well, poetic.
It took me a while to get started, but eventually I came up with a 6 x 5 about the thing that has been most on my mind this week: my new furbaby George. And why wouldn’t he be front and centre on my mind, having been with me only since last Friday? Anyway, here’s what I came up with
George
brings
warmth
wisdom
gaiety.
© Sally Murphy 2022)
But, once I’d written a 6 x 5, I knew almost straight away I had to try a 5 x 6. I also (nor surprisingly) spent a great deal of this week thinking about poetry – and, wouldn’t you know, it – poetry has five letters. And poetry makes me feel as happy as this guy, so why wouldn’t I write about it?
Write
poems
share
poems
smile
relax.
( © Sally Murphy 2022)
Okay, job done. Except, just like Wordle, this form is a little addictive and I couldn’t stop. I started wondering whether it would work for a 10 x 3. Could I actually use 10 3 letters words in a row and still make sense? You can decide:
Top
hat
and
bow
tie.
Off
for
tea
and
jam.
( © Sally Murphy 2022)
I dunno – but maybe this is someone setting off for a Poetry Friday tea party?
Not done yet, I figured I’d try a 3 x 10. I knew this one would be hard, but maybe my little bug friend was dancing in my brain my then because this is what I came up with (after scouring a list of 10 letter words, looking for connections:
Quicksteps
Hokeypokey
Joypopping!
(© Sally Murphy 2022)
And then, of course, my mind wandered to the final combination – 2 x 15. Possible? Again, I’m still not sure, because again, all I could do was scour a list of 15 letter words and look for connections. I found one in books:
Journalisations
bibliotherapies.
( © Sally Murphy 2022)
Not sure it’s a poem – but it was good exercise.
Lastly, I knew there was one possible last way of doing this: to find a single 30 letter word, which spoke all by itself. A search found only 1 30 letter word. And it’s a medical term. So, the only way I could try to make it poetic was to add a title, which I guess is cheating, but here goes:
1 Thing I Hope I Have not Inherited
Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
( © Sally Murphy 2022)
And of course, this search led me to consider just how long a word can be. According to Wikipedia – the answer to this question is ‘it depends’. It depends on whether we accept medical and technical words, or nonsense words. If we accept both, the longest word is – wait for it – 189,819 letters long. Which I can’t even fit into this post, let alone ever attempt to use in a poem.
Another thing to watch is all the other amazing posts for Poetry Friday. This week’s roundup is hosted by Matt. Head over to his blog later today to see the full list of Poetry Friday goodness.
Oh, in late-breaking news, George has decided he wants to be part of Poetry Friday too. He’s posted a Georgeku on Instagram. Clever George!
View this post on Instagram
