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[Poetry review for lessons: my stranger lover](https://steemit.com/hive-111825/@metugejacy20/poetry-review-for-lessons-my-stranger-lover-or-written-by-metugejacy20-jaciwrite) written by @metugejacy20 (jaci_write)

When I was in secondary school, I was a member of a specific class. We were the last people to study Latin in my school. It was a particularly small class (only half a dozen students) when most classes could have as many as thirty. It was particularly poignant as our teacher was dying of pancreatic cancer in the final year. He was in continual pain, and his skin colour was green as his organs were breaking down. I think he held on as long as he did because he wanted to complete this final class (on so many levels).

What does this have to do with poetry? In this class, I was introduced to the Roman poet Catullus.

     Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
     Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
                                               (Catullus, Poems, 85)

Here is my figurative translation (not literal) of the poem:

      I love you, and I hate you. You may ask why ...
      I don't know, but I feel and am tortured by these emotions.


The following video gives better insight into this poem.

https://youtu.be/r7--agTtb5M

Poems that reflect on Love/Hate relationships are particularly raw. You, like the moth, are attracted to flame, but you also know that this heat and passion means pain for you. The style of poetry that suits the raw emotions of this type of poetry, Free Verse, doesn't require consistent meter patterns or rhyming.

As an exercise, what if you did introduce rhyming to a poem. Thankfully, in this case, the first line doesn't end in "Heart." Currently, I am still thinking of limericks that are often rude. What rhymes with "Heart?" Smart, fart? What type of love poem would that be? 

Flame has a plethora of rhyming [words](https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/words-that-rhyme-with/flame.html) that can easily be worked into a poem: name, shame, game, blame etc.

Remember, this is an exercise in playing with words and not a critique or suggestion to modify:

>Because a moth will forever be drawn to a flame,
That's how I know I'll always be drawn, to my shame.

As I looked at these two lines, I realized I could go one step further.

>Because a moth will forever be drawn to a flame,
That's how I know I'll forever be drawn, to my shame.

Another thing that you can play with is to play around with the meter. Having an Iambic foot is appropriate for love poems because it echoes the heartbeat: lub dub, lub dub, lub dub.

> be CAUSE a MOTH will FOR ev ER be DRAWN to A flame 

We see that "forever" is a problem as it throws off the rhythm. 

> be CAUSE a MOTH is DRAWN to FLAME 

Looking at the following, we see we have the start of a poem written in an Iambic Tetrameter.

Name | Meter Type
---------------------------------------|---------------------------------------
Monometer | One foot
Dimeter | Two feet
Trimeter| Three feet
Tetrameter| Four feet
Pentameter| Five feet
Hexameter| Six feet
Heptameter| Seven feet
Octameter| Eight feet

The final level is to look at the pattern of the lines. A limerick has the form of AABBA. The first two lines end in one rhyme, followed by two that rhyme and the final line returns to rhyme with the first.

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
But his daughter named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
—[Princeton Tiger](https://blog.nantucket.net/there-once-was-a-man-from-nantucket/)

For this poem, I will use an AABBAA pattern and repeat the first line to bookend the piece. An example of this can be found in the poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. It is a far more skillful and complicated poem than one I'm creating. (Humanity was robbed when McCrae was killed in WWI.)

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

So this is my final kick at a toxic love poem.

> be CAUSE a MOTH is DRAWN to FLAME
i KNOW i WILL be DRAWN to SHAME.
it FEELS so GOOD my SKIN your SKIN
i'm PIERC'D, your WORDS to MY cha GRIN
sup PRESS my TEARS, my HEART you MAIM
be CAUSE a MOTH is DRAWN to FLAME

I thank @metugejacy20 for being the inspiration for this article and am making her a beneficiary for using her words.