Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Genealogy Jenny

Not too many people know what a Jenny is. A Jenny is a form of poetry I created last year. (Link is to my other blog). Like haiku, the word is both singular and plural.

It's a real simple form to learn. There is a specified number of lines, with a specified number of syllables for each line. Jenny have 7 lines, and a total of 38 syllables. The first line has 8 syllables. The second line has 6 syllables. The third line has 7 syllables. Can you guess the rest? Does this help: 8-6-7...

Here's an example:

Honor thy Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather

We all have eight great grandparents.
Half of us don’t know them.
I treasure all my surnames:
Newmark and Cruvant,
Feinstein, Blatt,

Deutsch, Lichtman, Van Every, Denyer.

That of course was more factual than poetic. The following is slightly better:

Advice Not Taken

In the hot summer heat I found
myself reading gravestones
looking for my ancestors.
All of the websites
said: Autumn.

I could not wait that long to find them.

© John Newmark

1 comment:

Janice said...

John,

I love this idea of a new form of poetry, and how you have applied it to genealogy! :)

Janice