DnW Poetry Contest #1: Once | An Original Poem

karunya (47)in #dnwpoetrycontest • 6 years ago (edited)

This is my entry for the first edition of the DnW Poetry Contest hosted by @deeday31 and @kneelyrac.
This time the theme was The Beginning and the brief was to write a four quatrain poem using any rhyme scheme.

                                                                Upon a time there was
                                                                 a story without a start;
                                                                              I've heard, without an origin,
                                                                            a tale hasn't got much heart.

                         So I went in search of the beginning,
            the 'once' that had gotten lost,
                                (I found some in-betweens and endings)
          but our paths never crossed.

                                 It was only much later I realised,
                                  I'd been looking in all the wrong places,
                                  for beginnings don't have to be new,
                                  they're often part of existing phases!

So I looked again, from dusk to dawn,
I watched the Sun descend;
then as the night gave way to light, I found
the beginning, right there - at the very end!

Once

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The Writing Process

I usually don't follow a rhyme scheme or form when I write poetry; in fact one of the reasons I initially never wrote poetry is because I thought it had to rhyme and I thought I was terrible at it. My writing and poetry usually involves free form that plays with the spacing of words. The requirements of this contest make this poem very different from my usual style, considering I had to rhyme and fit it in quatrains. I really enjoyed writing it though, and maybe I'll even be more open to rhyming in the future!

I used the ABCB rhyme scheme and chose again to play with the spacing so the poem works backwards towards the title, going with the message of the poem.

The Idea

It is always around this time of the year I find great emphasis on new beginnings and fresh starts, and little acknowledgement of the endings and things we've had to say goodbye to in order to invite these new things. I find beginnings and endings cyclical, one giving way to another seemlessly; one story weaving its way into the next. Sometimes, like nightfall and day, it is the endings that give way to beginnings as well and maybe the story needn't always flow from start to finish.
The header image I've drawn also attempts to depict this, with different paths leading to different points, or sometimes the same points, but it all being part of the same whole circle.
I hope you enjoy it!

#poetry #writing #fiction #stories