I chose the word STILL this week to help those who might want to combine it with their haiku for Monday’s Haiku Challenge prompt of (CALM & STORM).

The 2 CHALLENGES are SEPARATE but CAN BE combined if YOU CHOOSE to do so.

As you may know, if you did write a haiku you can:

• Take your haiku and carry its theme into your Décima poem.

• It can either support the haiku, enhance it through the opportunity of more lines, or completely turn the theme on its head and write an argument against the haiku message, which is kind of what a Décima is for, writing a counter to another Décima.

• If you wrote a true nature haiku, you could flip its message into one about humans and the man-made world around us, such as politics, society, and even love. Yes, love is a man-made thing. At least among the humans. I suppose it could be a penguin-made thing among the penguins.

• You may also if you like, try to use the Haiku Challenge words in your Décima somewhere. In fact, we have a lady that’s pretty consistent in doing that. And does so with such ease, you don’t even realize she’s done it unless you know she does it and look for it.
  

---

Welcome to the Décima Poetry Challenge. Each week we’ll be attempting a Décima, also known as an Espinela, poem.

If you don’t know how to write a Décima, click HERE to go to a post on How to Write an Espinela or Décima Poem.

Or…

Keep reading and find out, with an example included.

---

• To read last week’s Décima Poetry written for the prompt for LOOK, click HERE for all the links in one post.

---

Back to our scheduled Décima Poetry Challenge what to and what not to do.

If you can’t come up with a Décima using the given prompt, you can use a Synonym instead. I don’t want to stall your creativity, and with the possibility of a synonym, you will certainly write something amazing…or in my case, something that rhymes.

Sites to help:

RhymeZone.com
Thesaurus.com
HowManySyllables.com

Here is the quick description of a Décima:

There are 10 lines of poetry that rhyme. 8 syllables.
There is a set rhyming pattern we must stick to. abbaaccddc

The prompt word given (in the post heading) must appear at the end of one of the given rhyme lines, either A, B, C, or D.

Let’s look at the rhyme pattern once again and you will see what I mean.

The rhyming pattern is abbaaccddc with a choice of a break between line 4 and 5, then being abba accddc, which I use in my example below.

---

Example, if I say in the subject line of the post:

“…(FALL) This week it’s the B rhyme line.”

my Décima might be…

NO!

As the end wept upon the land,

we could hear the approaching fall.

Justice answered the trumpet’s call,

trusting the fight to her troop’s hand.

 

Fate trembles with haste to expand,

through misdeeds by her shameless foe.

Past foolish decisions now crow,

“Wait—no—this was not meant to be.”

They beg the nation, “Hear our plea.

Heal honor, shout, no…no… NO!”

 

Notice the example prompt word ‘FALL’ is in line 2, the first B line, and its rhyme in is in line 3, matching the rhyming pattern of abba accddc.

---

For today’s challenge, the word STILL must be one of the D line words. Then the other D line(s) word(s) must rhyme with STILL.

Sometimes you break the rhyme into two stanzas using the following rhyme pattern. abba/accddc.

Once you complete your poem and post it on your blog, copy the link and place it in the comments in this post. That way other people can visit your post and check out your poem. You can also put the link of this challenge in your post to let your followers know where to go if they want to participate. This is called a Pingback. This is not mandatory to join in or to put your post link in the comments. Click HERE to find out how to do a Pingback.

Reblogging is great as well.

Some people like to copy and paste the challenge image into their posts. That’s okay with me.

 

© 2020 Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.