Mad Cow & Mad Calf

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing
Light Verse

In the Mad Cow, the rhyme scheme sets the tone. This pastoral verse form invented by American Sebastian "Duke" Delorange, found at Poetry Base, is a perfect candidate for "Light Verse".

The elements of the Mad Cow are:

1. is a poem in 35 lines made up of 7 cinquains?
2. metric, alexandrine lines, iambic hexameter (6 metric feet) lines with midline caesura.
3. rhymed, rhyme scheme ababc cdede fgfgh hijij klklm mnono eieio. (for those not familiar with the nursery rhyme, "Old Mac Donald had a farm e i e i o. And on that farm he had a cow e i e i o. With a moo moo here and a moo moo there. Here a moo, there a moo, e i e i o0"
4. pastoral, to go along with it's name, the poem should include an idylic country setting.

The Mad Calf is just a baby Mad Cow, also invented by Delorange at Poetry Base, this verse form is a simpler shorter version of its parent.

The elements of the Mad Calf are:

1. a poem in 20 lines made up of 4 cinquains.
2. syllabic, each line 6 syllables.
3. rhyme, rhyme scheme abcde fghij klmno eieio. which in reality would be xxxxe xxxix xxxxo eieio, x being unrhymed.
4. pastoral.