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“Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves”
~ Humbert Wolfe

This month, my penultimate MTB of 2024, I’m taking a lead from the Anglo Saxons, who called November the “wind monath”. For these seafarers it was obviously an important factor in their calendar but mostly their chronicles of the wind are from the land, seeing it as a portent of death and disaster, which it obviously could be and was.

At this time of year in the Northern hemisphere, the winds do indeed tend to be wild as that most famous sonnet and Ode from Shelley attests:

“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed...[more]

Whilst Lola Ridge in her personification poem, rustles up a lusty North Wind

“Blow on and over my dreams. . .
Scatter my sick dreams. . .
Throw your lusty arms about me. . . 
Envelop all my hot body. . . 
Carry me to pine forests— 
Great, rough-bearded forests. . . 
Bring me to stark plains and steppes. . . 
I would have the North to-night— 
The cold, enduring North. [more]

Poetry Theme: And as you’ve probably guessed the theme of your poem should be

  • a wild wind, generic or a particular wild wind(see list of names from around the world below)
  • include it in your title or just as part of the poem
  • you could use personification, description, metaphor, scenic backdrop – the options are open

Poetry Style: And since today is the 14th our poetry style is going to follow a version of a sonnet, called the Trilonet from Shelley A. Cephas, accordingly:-

  • 14 lines
  • 4 tercets (3 line stanzas) ending with a rhyming couplet
  • rhymes scheme is ABC, ABC, ABC, ABC, AA (or BB or CC or DD)
  • in iambic pentameter of 10 syllables (5 feet) per line
  • or iambic tetrameter of 8 syllables (4 feet) per line

Note: In 2013 at dVerse Samuel Peralta outlined a version of this form which he called a Trireme Sonnet because he took some exception to Cephas’ Trillonet’s lack of reference to what is essentially a sonnet version and hence for today’spoetry style I’ve combined rules of both forms.

Useful Links:

So once you have posted your poem according to the guidelines above, do add it to Mr Linky below then go visiting and reading other contributors as that is half the fun of our dVerse gatherings.
[N.B. Mr Linky closes Saturday 3 p.m. EST]