Ovi Poetry Challenge 41: HOPE is your inspiration.

Ronovan Ovi Challenge, , , , ,

Last week it was tragedy. This week it’s hope. An odd thought went through this old broken brain of mine (those of you who know, know). If there was no hope, would accepting tragedy as just one more part of life be less tragic? There are places in the world like that, I think. Being an old history teacher and researcher, living in a tragic kingdom behind a curtain of stone and barbed wire… people learned to refuse the idea of hope of anything but what they had. They feared hope because it meant there was something else out there. Something out there that if hoped for it then their days would be that much worse.

Look at history. Remarkable things have occurred out of the bad. The darkest moments have ended in the brightest days… as long as we don’t forget and we keep hope.

But where I, as well as most of the people that might happen upon this site, live hope is an easy thing to have. I’m an optimist. Hope is never far from the surface for me even when it seems to have abandoned me itself.

 

OVI POETRY

Ovi is a syllabic/metre poetry form. In this case, Ovi is from India, originating in the Marathi language. The Ovi  has been in use in written form since the 13th Century, but the women’s ovee/ovi predates the literary form by at least the 12th Century.

The Ovi are in general, lyrical folk songs expressing love, social irony, and heroic events. They are written in the following scheme.

4 line stanzas, as few as one stanza and up to as many as you like.

8 syllables or less per line

Rhyming is AAAb. The second stanza would be CCCd. The third, EEEf. And so on. Meaning nothing in one stanza must rhyme with anything in the previous stanza. The fourth line does not rhyme.

Example:

Roly Poly by Judi Van Gorder

The big toothed tot with golden hair
picked up a bug on Sister’s dare,
it rolled into a ball right there
and won her springtime heart.

Notice the rhyming pattern is AAAb or
A
A
A
b

My Attempt

Blue flowers continue to grow,
with the shadow’s making them glow,
giving life to darkness and woe,
dying each year to yet return.

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14 thoughts on “Ovi Poetry Challenge 41: HOPE is your inspiration.”

  2. Hope Springs Inferno

    At some point, some imagined spot,

    I suppose, one connects each dot,

    each link in the eternal plot

    to make life quite complicated.

    Granted, many are doing well,

    secure in the world where they dwell,

    far cries from a falling bombshell,

    though concerned about big pictures.

    A question posed: Is Earth on fire?

    Global waring? The muck and mire?

    And who answers?  The same old choir

    who have been preached to forever.

    And here I sit, a poet low,

    drawn to the things I do not know,

    bad puns like “Hope Springs Inferno,”

    seeking reason and a few rhymes.

    http://www.engleson.ca

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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