Justin - Conflict

About the writing

Let’s start by talking about the form ballade. A ballade is a 14th Century French form and the best examples of it are (wait for it) in French and from the 14th and 15th centuries. Chaucer would be considered the English language master of the form but his typically did not have the envoi, the four-line stanza at the end. I did not know most of that when I selected the form last week, rather I selected it for one reason; Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Ballade of a Ship. Robinson was a 19th and 20th century American poet who wrote in traditional forms with meter and rhyme when it was no longer popular to do so. He is my poetic hero and the reason I selected this archaic form.

The actual writing was rather difficult. I decided to start with the repeated refrain and build around it, which didn’t work. I worked on lines for four different concepts concerning the topic of conflict before I settled into this one. I’m leaving the conflict unnamed because I think there is more than one read and I sometimes like to leave it to the reader.

Also, I usually try to punctuate my poetry. I actually enjoy punctuation in regular writing, but I hate doing it in poetry, so I decided I didn’t have to. Though difficult, I really like this form. Second to the sonnet, it may be my favorite.

Ballade of the Flood

In this forsaken broken land
Where we for table scraps have fought
We find no treasure in our hand
Seeking what should not be sought
Bound up in chains our hands have wrought
When brothers spilled their brothers’ blood
Building fire to fight the hot
Holding a cup to catch the flood

Willingly we take the brand
Of masters who have given naught
Lying where we ought to stand
Standing for what we ought not
And for our brothers give no thought
Though trudging through the same thick mud
For self alone we plan and plot
Holding a cup to catch the flood

As fools we build upon the sand
Not knowing why our work is fraught
Build castles of delusions grand
And chase that which cannot be caught
And if by fancies we’re besot
We will not see the gushing blood
Pretending all is as it ought
Holding a cup to catch the flood

Suppose though that we might be taught
That love between the selfish bud
Together working to fix our lot
All holding cups to catch the flood