Trick Poetry

The poems that I have documented for this category  include

Trick Poetry                           (four in one - OR many more)

and  Amera's Style                (2 in one ), both on this page

The Trigee and the Cleave  (three in one) 

The Faceted Diamond         (three in one - formatted)

Multidirectional Sonnet     (2 in one)  In Everysonnet blog.

In First Loves, Margaret Atwood describes this "trick" poem ("I Saw a Peacock" by an anonymous British poet) as "the first poem I can remember that opened up the possibility of poetry for me." The trick is the two ways it can be understood; read a line at a time, or read from the middle of one line to the middle of the next. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes notes that it appears in a commonplace book dated to around 1665; it seems to have been first published in the Westminster-Drollery in 1671.

I Saw a Peacock, with a fiery tail,

    I saw a Blazing Comet, drop down hail,

    I saw a Cloud, with Ivy circled round,

    I saw a sturdy Oak, creep on the ground,

    I saw a Pismire, swallow up a Whale,

    I saw a raging Sea, brim full of Ale,

    I saw a Venice Glass, full fifteen feet deep,

    I saw a well, full of men's tears that weep,

    I saw red eyes, all of a flaming fire,

    I saw a House, as big as the Moon and higher,

    I saw the Sun, even in the midst of night,

    I saw the man, that saw this wondrous sight.

Write a "trick" poem using this technique.  

Each line must be able to be read separately, as well as from the middle of one line to the middle of the next.

Note: I made a simple template simply dividing your line in two parts.

Its advantage is simply that you can see separate parts and visualize how with will combine.

Note: in this poem . . each half is a complete rhyming poem,

each line can be read either way with the lines in the other column on the same line, or on the line above or below it, with rhyme in at lease one sequence.

In addition one can each of the different colored lines in a column, (either up or down) as a distinct poem.

Here is an AMERA STYLE where the bold words create a poem within a poem.

Secret place for Elves

Something we know how to do

Is build a place to hide from you

High up in the trees we climb

For scattles of years; in elfin time

So the king of elves came to me

Said build a house up in a tree

All he had to do was ask

Then the elves set to the task

A house in a tree, that’s what he said

To hide from humans that we dread

So we huddled we to whisper

To keep our plans much crisper

We need a name; what to call it?

A Tree House! That name will fit

So now our work has just begun

Hammering, singing elfin fun

A secret place high in the tree

A place where no one else can see

A place to hide for another scattle

To avoid a nasty battle

A cozy place, a place to love

High up in the tree above

Secret creatures, Elves are we

Now living high up in the tree

Pasted from <http://allpoetry.com/poem/2474373-Secret-place-for-Elves-by-Amera>