You, Yeah, You

[twelveoone]

1201 - or someone else who knows: could someone start a thread on rhyme schemes, tricks, etc? The other day I came across something that someone explained was slant rhyme in a PM. Now you are talking about stop rhyme. How does one learn these things? Is there a resource that will not bore me to tears? Better yet...illustrations like the one above with notes. Yes. You are now being asked to teach

well particularly you, in your case you are doing fine. to be honest i thought you where Lauren Hynde at first. you are the most exciting new poet i've run into in the past year, and that is even when i'm not looking at your AV.
tricks? i'll get to that over in level three thread.

 

[twelveoone]

you are you, there is nobody like you (well maybe you have a vestigial twin)
when you read a poem, what you see is what you get, for your own benefit try viewing it from a different perspective, i.e. sometimes it helps to read the comments.
when you write, you write as yourself, the last thing the world needs is 1,000 robert frosts.
what you write someone is not going to like, someone will like, count 'em
now ask yourself are they assholes? sorry. i meant fans.
it's good to have one or two fans.
but the last thing you need is a fan base you feel the need to cater to, you will never grow
Now there is no right or wrong, it is what you want to do, i assume you want to do better.
As far as forms, metre, knowledge of technical terms, these things in and of themselves is of no great importance. In perspective some one had to invent the forms, metre is an ugly can of worms*, and what it is called is not that important, it is more important to have an idea of what things do. If you want to learn all that crap, go ahead, can't hurt.

Very simply Poetry relies on repeating patterns, most commonly sound patterns. The best advice I've ever heard was something like if it sounds right, write it.

If you are starting, read, read, read some more.
If you are writing don't write the same bullshit that you read, for starters, rewrite it. Make it New, dammit.

After that it is incremental, You pick and chose. Thank those that helped.

and for god's sake don't try any of the stunts I pull

 

[twelveoone]

the history of metre is very shaky, Devised by the Romans to read a language that had been dead for 800 years, it was based on vowel length. It was adapted by the English about the same time there language was changing, and it became stress based. There is some disagreement as to what exactly is stress, disagreement as to how to read it (scansion); and the other thing to consider is English is not the same the world over.
Some times these things are used as a form of barrier to entry. Be careful of that.

 

[Desejo]

well particularly you, in your case you are doing fine. to be honest i thought you where Lauren Hynde at first. you are the most exciting new poet i've run into in the past year, and that is even when i'm not looking at your AV.
tricks? i'll get to that over in level three thread.

Ahem, 12 oh...your box is full. Are you keeping it that way in the interests of full disclosure and transparency? Fine with me. So - Lauren Hynde? Errr...Why? That's funny. I did wonder who the hell you thought I was last year.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Do me a favor, and if you see something randomly posted on the forum here that you think I should work on and post, tell me so. My issue is finding the right ones to focus on.

As for the AV, maybe I should take to wearing that lone ranger/ hijab look around town. In this town, they would probably hire me if I did - in fear of a discrimination lawsuit. Could be funny, actually.

 

[twelveoone]

Ahem, 12 oh...your box is full. Are you keeping it that way in the interests of full disclosure and transparency? Fine with me. So - Lauren Hynde? Errr...Why? That's funny. I did wonder who the hell you thought I was last year.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Do me a favor, and if you see something randomly posted on the forum here that you think I should work on and post, tell me so. My issue is finding the right ones to focus on.

As for the AV, maybe I should take to wearing that lone ranger/ hijab look around town. In this town, they would probably hire me if I did - in fear of a discrimination lawsuit. Could be funny, actually.

i did but only while working

 

[joseph20]

Nice comment

 

[twelveoone]

Nice comment

it's nice to know i got the 20th post from joseph20, you don't have much to say.

 

[twelveoone]

1201 - or someone else who knows: could someone start a thread on rhyme schemes, tricks, etc? The other day I came across something that someone explained was slant rhyme in a PM. Now you are talking about stop rhyme. How does one learn these things? Is there a resource that will not bore me to tears? Better yet...illustrations like the one above with notes. Yes. You are now being asked to teach

no, there is not one resource, i can try to show you some things, but even that is difficult, because i said somewhere there are no answers only more questions.
Is poetry a written or spoken art? if written, sound does not matter, it is overlay of images and meanings. If spoken, we have a host of problems, the most difficult deal with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_segmentationword boundaries *, if it is both written and spoken the problem of enjambment and what happens at the end of the line arises. Both problems appeared here many years ago in threads, I actually went looking for them.
*excerpt
For most spoken languages, the boundaries between lexical units are surprisingly difficult to identify. One might expect that the inter-word spaces used by many written languages, like English or Spanish, would correspond to pauses in their spoken version; but that is true only in very slow speech, when the speaker deliberately inserts those pauses. In normal speech, one typically finds many consecutive words being said with no pauses between them, and often the final sounds of one word blend smoothly or fuse with the initial sounds of the next word.

Moreover, an utterance can have different meanings depending on how it is split into words. A popular example, often quoted in the field ,[2] is the phrase How to wreck a nice beach, which sounds very similar to How to recognize speech. As this example shows, proper lexical segmentation depends on context and semantics which draws on the whole of human knowledge and experience, and would thus require advanced pattern recognition and artificial intelligence technologies to be implemented on a computer.

Here is a word Mondegreen, look it up, knowledge of this may be one of the most important tools you could ever have.

if you wish, i can try to break apart some of the components with an example that TS Eliot dumped on us in 1922, that The Poet Guy failed to recognize and parse.

 

[twelveoone]

http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Waste_Land
excerpt
The poet’s struggle to make a new poem out of the inherited language of tradition seems to be mirrored in the unevenness of the poem’s language and form. The opening lines vary between five and nine syllables each. Five of the seven lines end with a single verb in participial form, following a comma (which marks a caesura, or pause, in the poem’s rhythm). These lines seem uneven—as if the poet had started to write iambic pentameter but not completed the lines or as if he had intended to write shorter lines with three or four beats each but felt compelled to add the words that appear after the commas. Each of the participles introduces an enjambment—in which a unit of meaning carries beyond a line-ending into the next line. The poem makes sparing use of end-rhyme, which is associated with completion and closure. Yet the participial verb forms that end five of the first seven lines perform something like the function of rhyme, linking together the various underground motions of winter and spring: breeding, mixing, stirring, covering, feeding: indeed, “breeding” and “feeding” do rhyme. Eliot also makes use of alliteration—the repetition of consonants—in phrases such as “lilacs out of the dead land,” “mixing / Memory,” “Winter kept us warm,” and “a little life.” Alliteration is an older poetic technique than rhyme and typical of Old English poetry, which, like these lines, was heavily accented.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

this is one of the most unusual patterns in history, and it works, despite itself.

pattern>
, breeding, mixing, stirring.. spring rain. 1,2,3 and 4
, covering , feeding ... tubers. 1,2 and 3
(the holy goddamn triad, how many times in the past did i mention, that friends is almost certainly hard wired in the brain )
breeding/ feeding is the only true rhyme (feminine) the others are not considered rhyme according to formal rules (check me on that Tzara) all of this with what is considered bad enjambment.
not also "spring" rhymes with the other ing's, why the fucker almost pops.
before I go further, any meter readers want to scan this?

 

[Desejo]

Here is a word Mondegreen, look it up, knowledge of this may be one of the most important tools you could ever have.

if you wish, i can try to break apart some of the components with an example that TS Eliot dumped on us in 1922, that The Poet Guy failed to recognize and parse.

Thank you for this - I finally have a word to explain my non-native English speaking father's insistence that the Beatles' "Can't buy me love" is in fact: Cambabi love. What is it? Well, duh...an African tribe.

The other classics of course being:
Oh say can you see, by the dawnserly light.
or
And to the republic, for witch-it stands, ....

Really interesting. I do not pay enough attention, probably, to the spoken sound of poetry. I like words and how they relate on paper. Yes. Continue, Tee-tcha!

 

[HarryHill]

Here is a word Mondegreen, look it up, knowledge of this may be one of the most important tools you could ever have.

Alright, Twelve oh's at it again; as usual, I run behind him picking up words by the score. The longer I searched the less pun it became

 

[twelveoone]

Thank you for this - I finally have a word to explain my non-native English speaking father's insistence that the Beatles' "Can't buy me love" is in fact: Cambabi love. What is it? Well, duh...an African tribe.

The other classics of course being:
Oh say can you see, by the dawnserly light.
or
And to the republic, for witch-it stands, ....

Really interesting. I do not pay enough attention, probably, to the spoken sound of poetry. I like words and how they relate on paper. Yes. Continue, Tee-tcha!

rhyme, rhyme, there it is. all sorts...
i'll except this:
Tee-tcha!
i am not a teacher, i point
now, before i go on, take the first line replace April with the other 11, say it
APRIL is the cruellest month,
what works best, just as sound, why?

but i do want a scansion of this, for 6 years there has been a warfare of sorts going on, and this time i intend to show them i know what i'm doing

 

[twelveoone]

no, this time, i'm handing over keys

APRIListhecruellestmonth, this is a word boundary
pause
the tendency is you hear the first and last word, cruel you hear, at least for three reasons is the cruel unstressed unstressed stressed, PLUS the sound itself cruel, not only that but because it is an echo PRIL/cruel a rhyme of sorts

try this
APRIListhedullestmonth
APRIListhedearymonth


that's enuff for now

 

[butters]

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

this is the way i hear this:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

or, to put it another way:

A i i e oo e e un, E in
I a ow o e eh an, i in
e or E a E I er, er in
u ooo i in A.
in er e uh or, o-er-in
er i or e ul O, E in
a i ul I i I U ers

or even
a series of notes up and down the scale

 

[Desejo]

http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Waste_Land
excerpt
The poet’s struggle to make a new poem out of the inherited language of tradition seems to be mirrored in the unevenness of the poem’s language and form. The opening lines vary between five and nine syllables each. Five of the seven lines end with a single verb in participial form, following a comma (which marks a caesura, or pause, in the poem’s rhythm). These lines seem uneven—as if the poet had started to write iambic pentameter but not completed the lines or as if he had intended to write shorter lines with three or four beats each but felt compelled to add the words that appear after the commas. Each of the participles introduces an enjambment—in which a unit of meaning carries beyond a line-ending into the next line. The poem makes sparing use of end-rhyme, which is associated with completion and closure. Yet the participial verb forms that end five of the first seven lines perform something like the function of rhyme, linking together the various underground motions of winter and spring: breeding, mixing, stirring, covering, feeding: indeed, “breeding” and “feeding” do rhyme. Eliot also makes use of alliteration—the repetition of consonants—in phrases such as “lilacs out of the dead land,” “mixing / Memory,” “Winter kept us warm,” and “a little life.” Alliteration is an older poetic technique than rhyme and typical of Old English poetry, which, like these lines, was heavily accented.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

this is one of the most unusual patterns in history, and it works, despite itself.

pattern>
, breeding, mixing, stirring.. spring rain. 1,2,3 and 4
, covering , feeding ... tubers. 1,2 and 3
(the holy goddamn triad, how many times in the past did i mention, that friends is almost certainly hard wired in the brain )
breeding/ feeding is the only true rhyme (feminine) the others are not considered rhyme according to formal rules (check me on that Tzara) all of this with what is considered bad enjambment.
not also "spring" rhymes with the other ing's, why the fucker almost pops.
before I go further, any meter readers want to scan this?

OK - dumb question time. In the pattern above, do the numbers apply overall, or by line? stirring/Tubers that is getting me. If the link there is with the T sound, then why isn't it 5?

 

[twelveoone]

OK - dumb question time. In the pattern above, do the numbers apply overall, or by line? stirring/Tubers that is getting me. If the link there is with the T sound, then why isn't it 5?

enjambment, enjambment, enjambment, end stop
enjambment, enjambment, end stop
only Eliot is rubbing your nose in it. ng,ng,ng rain, ng,ng, tubers (3-1, 2-1,) varies,
end stops, rain, tubers varies the other way, 1 syllable, 2 syllables,

from Yale
Each of the participles introduces an enjambment—in which a unit of meaning carries beyond a line-ending into the next line. The poem makes sparing use of end-rhyme, which is associated with completion and closure. Yet the participial verb forms that end five of the first seven lines perform something like the function of rhyme, linking together the various underground motions of winter and spring: breeding, mixing, stirring, covering, feeding: indeed, “breeding” and “feeding” do rhyme.

 

[twelveoone]

catch this?
rapt indefinite beauty (printed)
wrapped in definite beauty (heard)
Mondegreen

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=550279&highlight=line%22
discussion on enjambment

because eliot forces another question

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding < what happens here?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

is it read as breeding or as breedingLilacsoutofthedeadland

Again, how is it scanned, care to take a crack Demure101? Tzara seems to have run off, The Poet Guy disappeared. I really want to see the stress levels on this. As a scansion artist sees them

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

i'll give it a day or two more, then i'll move on, there actually is quite more to this, some are controversial, some merely because of the time. I think one or two said they couldn't understand this in another thread, it really is a remarkable text, both Tzara and I seemed to have learned something from it.

 

[butters]

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding < what happens here?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

is it read as breeding or as breedingLilacsoutofthedeadland

the latter

 

[Tzara]

Again, how is it scanned, care to take a crack Demure101? Tzara seems to have run off, The Poet Guy disappeared. I really want to see the stress levels on this. As a scansion artist sees them

Stop being so aggressive, bud. Surely you can take a try at the scansion on this. You obviously have an opinion abut it.

Let's let, perhaps, the author, his own self, guide us, hey?

 

[twelveoone]

Stop being so aggressive, bud. Surely you can take a try at the scansion on this. You obviously have an opinion abut it.

Let's let, perhaps, the author, his own self, guide us, hey?

my point has always been there is a great degree of variability in stress and scansion, and thus subjective, and not anywhere the determinate of "good" poetry as you and others seem to assign it.

this is not my religion, Tzara, lets see a little effort on your part in defense of it, i want to see it, from a believer, either you, Demure, bflsgsst, or anyone else, preferably at least two.
or is this set-up in such a way as to make it impossible to scan? if so, i'll move on and wrap this baby up.

 

[butters]

catch this?
rapt indefinite beauty (printed)
wrapped in definite beauty (heard)
Mondegreen

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=550279&highlight=line%22
discussion on enjambment

because eliot forces another question

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding < what happens here?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

is it read as breeding or as breedingLilacsoutofthedeadland

Again, how is it scanned, care to take a crack Demure101? Tzara seems to have run off, The Poet Guy disappeared. I really want to see the stress levels on this. As a scansion artist sees them

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

i'll give it a day or two more, then i'll move on, there actually is quite more to this, some are controversial, some merely because of the time. I think one or two said they couldn't understand this in another thread, it really is a remarkable text, both Tzara and I seemed to have learned something from it.

was i so way off base with marking how i read the stresses as to render me invisible? say it ain't so

 

[Tzara]

my point has always been there is a great degree of variability in stress and scansion,

We actually don't disagree about the "variability in stress" part. I don't think I've ever maintained that all stresses are equal, or even that stresses are fixed. If I did, I recant that position. A good poet pays attention to the rhythm of his/her poem, though that might be quite affected by their nationality and accent.

Look at these lines, for example

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.​

which are perhaps the most often misquoted lines in poetry--Kilmer obviously hears the word "poem" as PO-em, which makes it fit his (rather robotic) iambic tetrameter. This is why most, or I think most, contemporary Americans remember the second line as "A poem as lovely as a tree"--they read the word "poem" as POME and insert a missing unstressed syllable in the line.

Sorry. Let me get back to what you were saying...

...and thus subjective, and not anywhere the determinate of "good" poetry as you and others seem to assign it.

I doubt I have ever said anything like scansion [or regular meter, which is, I assume, your implication] is a determinate of good poetry. That would be a kind of idiotic statement.

But I don't want to fight with you. If I have said something that implied that to you, I explicitly recant it as stupid.

this is not my religion, Tzara,

Nor mine, either. I'm agnostic, remember?

lets see a little effort on your part in defense of it, i want to see it, from a believer, either you, Demure, bflsgsst, or anyone else, preferably at least two.
or is this set-up in such a way as to make it impossible to scan? if so, i'll move on and wrap this baby up.

Well, first of all, there is nothing to defend. Scansion is a tool, not a philosophy or method. It's like notating music--a way to mark what you hear when you read a poem. You have yourself indicated there are various notation systems for marking scansion.

Secondly, what is the point of scanning free verse? Marking scansion in form poetry helps illustrate how the author is doing what they're doing. Marking scansion in free verse (which, as the Yale article you quoted implies) is kind of pointless. If the poet is not writing metric verse, what is the point of marking stress?

In any case, your point seemed to be about enjambment, which doesn't have anything to do with stress/scansion.

Sometimes, you mystify me as to what point you're trying to make. Just make your point and then we can talk about it.

Sheesh.

 

[twelveoone]

was i so way off base with marking how i read the stresses as to render me invisible? say it ain't so

ah no, you hit a key part, there are ghosts here:
APRIL


a pril; relative stress level would be in the case of A, determined by the length of the vowel, shorten it, pril comes to the forefront, and because of line content (cruel)
btw, i've never noticed a word where A syllable starting a word isn't long and isn't accented
Li lacs out of the dead land,
alliterative (ghost?)

We actually don't disagree about the "variability in stress" part. I don't think I've ever maintained that all stresses are equal, or even that stresses are fixed. If I did, I recant that position. A good poet pays attention to the rhythm of his/her poem, though that might be quite affected by their nationality and accent.

Look at these lines, for example

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.​

which are perhaps the most often misquoted lines in poetry--Kilmer obviously hears the word "poem" as PO-em, which makes it fit his (rather robotic) iambic tetrameter. This is why most, or I think most, contemporary Americans remember the second line as "A poem as lovely as a tree"--they read the word "poem" as POME and insert a missing unstressed syllable in the line.

Sorry. Let me get back to what you were saying...
I doubt I have ever said anything like scansion [or regular meter, which is, I assume, your implication] is a determinate of good poetry. That would be a kind of idiotic statement.

But I don't want to fight with you. If I have said something that implied that to you, I explicitly recant it as stupid.
Nor mine, either. I'm agnostic, remember?
Well, first of all, there is nothing to defend. Scansion is a tool, not a philosophy or method. It's like notating music--a way to mark what you hear when you read a poem. You have yourself indicated there are various notation systems for marking scansion.

Secondly, what is the point of scanning free verse? Marking scansion in form poetry helps illustrate how the author is doing what they're doing. Marking scansion in free verse (which, as the Yale article you quoted implies) is kind of pointless. If the poet is not writing metric verse, what is the point of marking stress?

In any case, your point seemed to be about enjambment, which doesn't have anything to do with stress/scansion.

Sometimes, you mystify me as to what point you're trying to make. Just make your point and then we can talk about it.

Sheesh.

a cueing system? a pattern set up for disruption to emphasize something
This does not operate under normal Free Verse principles
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
would read (be written):
APRIL is the cruellest month, (pause)
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, (pause)
mixing Memory and desire, (pause)
stirring Dull roots with spring rain. (pause)

it wasn't

...the devils both of them
this is highly symptomatic of Eliot's concern between the clash between form (external shell) and the contradiction inherent in the term Free Verse (verse implies rhyme) a little nose thumbing on his part.

he also buried a sonnet in the Waste Land

The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavors to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defense;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronizing kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...

structure reprised?

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

"This music crept by me upon the waters"
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within

back to the beginning...

but before i do that loudly and clearly i'm saying it is time to give the foot to the foot
there are better organizing principles

 

[Tzara]

This does not operate under normal Free Verse principles

Free verse has "principles?"

Sorry, 1201, but that seems to me like a stupid statement. And I use the word "stupid" deliberately, noting definitions 2 and, particularly, 4, from here.

Would you care to substantiate that comment?

I'm open, even happy, to be proved wrong on this point.

I think, though, you're overdriving your headlights.

 

[twelveoone]

Free verse has "principles?"

Sorry, 1201, but that seems to me like a stupid statement. And I use the word "stupid" deliberately, noting definitions 2 and, particularly, 4, from here.

Would you care to substantiate that comment?

I'm open, even happy, to be proved wrong on this point.

I think, though, you're overdriving your headlights.

Reflections on ‘Vers Libre,’ 1917 The simpler metres are a repetition of one combination, perhaps a long and a short, or a short and a long syllable, five times repeated. there is, however, no reason why, within the single line, there should be any repetition; why there should not be lines (as there are) divisible only into feet of different types. How can the grammatical exercise of scansion make a line of this sort more intelligible? Only by isolating elements which occur in other lines, and the sole purpose of doing this is the production of a similar effect elsewhere. But repetition of effect is a question of pattern. . . . But the most interesting verse which has yet been written in our language has been done either by taking a very simple form, like the iambic pentameter, and constantly withdrawing from it, or taking no form at all, and constantly approximating to a very simple one. It is this contrast between fixity and flux, this unperceived evasion of monotony, which is the very life of verse.

from old tom

a matter of definitions, there seems to be a curious blind spot with you Tzara. is there not two other ghosts in operation? does everything have to be so delineated so you can see it? if not it's stupid?

here it is again
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

5 cases of bad enjambment, would whitman have done it?

would read (be written):
APRIL is the cruellest month, (pause)
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, (pause)
mixing Memory and desire, (pause)
stirring Dull roots with spring rain. (pause)

he played a game, i'm not sure he knew it, it was a transitional passage from he do the police in different voices, which was cut. pound would have seen it, this in effect became a mission statement of sorts.

the buried sonnet, he cut the top and bottom off, ends with...;the next 14 lines, echoing, only it disintegrates at the end.

you are well aware of koch's organizing principle
Free verse has "principles?"
yes,
would you care to retract the "stupid"?
since i showed another structure in Demure's, since I showed what you were doing in your ticket poem.