I’ve been working on a couple of poems lately, but they’ve been stubborn, resisting tweaking. I suspect they’ll languish for a week or two or more as report cards and comments take over. Perhaps they’ll be better for the break. Or perhaps I will be.

At any rate, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to share today, but then, this week on Facebook, poet Heidi Bee Roemer posed a challenge to write a double dactyl. Huh?  A double what? I’d never even heard of it and once I researched it, I was even more astonished.  There are more than a few hoops to jump through. It’s a double quatrain poem. The first three lines in each stanza must be double dactyls and the ending lines are dactyl spondee pairs and must rhyme. (Yeah, I totally had to look that up!) 

There are a few more requirements: You begin with a nonsense line, then name a person in the second line. The poem is then intended to “poke fun” at that person. Oh, also, the 6th line must be a one word double dactyl (like coincidentally or genealogical), but it should never have been used before in a double dactyl. (No, I’m not making that up, but I do think that final rule is typically disregarded.) I think that’s about it, but you can check out the definition here.

For some reason, I’ve been playing around with the form ever since. (Can you say “report card procrastination”?) I really do like the rhythm of it, and the challenge of jumping through those hoops. I tried to explain the form to my husband and to explain why it was fun to play with, but he just looked at me oddly. It’s still not quite where I want it, but it meets most of the listed requirements. I’ll keep tweaking this one too, but for now, without further ado, here’s my debut double dactyl:

Higgledy, Piggledy
Anakin Skywalker
tempted by dark forces
altered his name.

If he’d considered an
adenoidectomy,
would he have risen to
cinema fame?

Molly Hogan ©2019

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by the wonderful Michelle Heidenrich Barnes of Today’s Little Ditty fame. She’s celebrating the release of her new collection, “The Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2017-2018.” I’m over-the-moon excited to have three poems included in this collection.