Echo verse poetry

[Acolyte]

After reading a great poem, Narcissus and Echo, by Fred Chapell, I decided to try my hand at echo verse...and failed miserably (I like exploring fixed or structured poetry, even if I end up writing the poem in free verse most of the time). I've tried on and off for a bit, never with any success.

I was wondering if anyone here had attempted writing echo verse and could share their experience, or if anyone had some thoughts they would offer on the attempt. I mean, heck, if people write sestinas that make sense, you'd think some rhyme tricks wouldn't be beyond them. *grin*

 

[Nathan]

Never heard of Echo Verse. Care to illustrate?

 

[novella]

I expect you mean the Surrealist mode of echo poetry, but there are several different forms of that.

These suck, but that's expected because of the ‘automatic’ nature of the Surrealist technique. They tend to be regarded as good games--two people can play-- but crap poems. Some have one column where you go from line to line, some have two columns.

This kind:

sleep traces in your eye drain plain
salted yet unverified fried
bits of crinkled potato chip slip
away with the first water outta
your wet fingers lingers
at the rim of the drain strain
to also wipe the sleep from brain.



And this kind:



Though he was kinda handsome // and some would find him simple
simple to like, to pet like a dog // a dog, not, not even someone to talk with
with a biscuit in hand, leash too // Two fleet minutes later I’d be gone
Be gone and leave me with him // with him standing there, I leave



And the kind with no rhyme at all or real echo, just a jumping off point for a second player.

And then there are the Elizabethan echo poets and Rimaud, Baudelaire, etc., who do something else entirely.

 

[honeydevil]

i think you can build it in once in a while, but writing a whole poem in this style is really hard!!

 

[novella]

Acolyte,
Can you post a poem in this style? Anything will do. Just to see what you're talking about.

Thanks!

 

[Acolyte]

Narcissus and Echo, by Fred Chapell, is the perfect example, but the site that had the full-text poem has now removed it, and I left my Norton Reader at my house, so I'm not a lot of help...the way it's structured, Narcissus speaks, and Echo has one word at the end of every line, which is an echo of the last word he says. Her one word echoes form a cohesive phrase, and the effect is really cool.

Here are some lines from the poem I tried to write (overall it's hardly worth posting). The overall echo poem part is the male character's anguished thoughts, directed to his dead wife.

He gently kissed his daughter goodbye......I
patting her fondly on her woolen black glove......love
she smiled at him as if she knew......you

...(really bad stuff)...

on the cliff where she had been overcome....come
but the memory of their daughter’s smile took him aback...back
leadenly he turned from the freedom he longed to step into....to

and released black despair, true life’s enemy....me