CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

This week’s verse moves from a speculative fantasy verse about the coming of trolls and knights to an unsuspecting world, to an urban fantasy verse about someone's first encounter with a fairy and a troll. It is taken from Another 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2019. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Lesson Learned The fairy shimmered in the pond, as it flew from tree to tree. The fairy shimmered in the pond, but it would not fly to me. I looked up to watch it pass, caught the briefest shine of fairy dust, but when I looked into the pond, it had passed and I could not see. I was sure I’d seen a fairy pass, in the still depths of the pond. In truth it passed me well above, the lily pads and long fern fronds. In truth it passed me well above, but it faded from the eye, so only in the pond’s still depths could I watch the fair...

An englyn is a form of Welsh or Cornish verse, with a reputation of being hard to master. It has several different variants, all of which are governed by strict rules. This week, we’ll look at a variant insisted on by novelist Robertson Davies. Davies insisted that the englyn must have four lines. The first line should have 10 syllables, the second should have 6, and the last two lines should have 7 syllables each. His form also states that there must be a break after the seventh, eighth OR ninth syllable, and that this is where the rhyme is introduced. The second line rhymes with the break, and the last syllable of the first line must be linked by either rhyme or assonance with the 3rd or 4th syllable of the second line. The third and fourth lines must rhyme on a weak syllable and must rhyme with the rhyme in the first line—very similar to the first form of englyn. The Troll Queen She stands beneath the ancient-most bridges where there lingers bones lost She defies al...