During the last six months I have written more than 500 quatrains. Here is a menu of Quatrains by Stephen C. Rose. Here is a menu of just a few of my quatrains.
What is a quatrain. In my book it can be anything that has a poetic aspect and is four lines long. More generally it is four lines in some understandable meter and rhyme.
I do not write quatrains merely to create poetry. I write them because I am a believer in the short form. If I can say what I want in four lines, why write a blog like this?
I see no reason.
I also believe that quatrains can summarize a key point – usually an opinion – just as well as a paragraph or several paragraphs of prose.
I sometimes compose quatrains to a tune because I have been a songwriter for most of my life. If the subject reminds me of McArthur Park I will write to the meter.
I was never writing to be read/ I wrote to ease my head
And so forth.
Yesterday I wrote a quatrain to express a fairly fine point in philosophy relating to semiotics and Derrida’s declension of Peirce. It raises my own solution to the question under discussion:
It is called “Mind Over Sign”.
I say to the sign man Sir please say
Could the mind not start and stop a sign
And if a sign might simply be a word
Could not a word transcend all time
I do not punctuate my quatrains. I write them on news. On philosophy. On theology. And so forth.
If you would like a slant on the day, I would invite you to bookmark my Associated Content profile page for a daily selection of short form writing, mostly quatrains and brief topical slideshows featuring my own art.
Better yet, if you have a desire to write and earn a tiny amount or somewhat more in relationship as you desire with other writers, then join Associated Content as my affiliate and I will try to be of assistance.
