Honing the Craft

Hollow

Since you left
clouds darken the sky,
the old dog mopes on the porch,
and waking without you, the days are
GREY.
                             ~~Judi Van Gorder

5 Lines
Prompt: "Week 48 Form: Sidlak"  
Sidlak means "shine" in Cebuano, a language of Northern Mindanao, Philippine Islands. It is a verse form that has appeared over the last 5 years in blogs at Word Press. It seems Shambhavi Bhardwaj first introduced it there. But because of the Filipino source of the name and Bhardwaj does not take credit for its creation, its source is still a mystery to me. Shambhavi's description of the form, however, has been quoted exactly whenever the form appears online so far. I break it down a little differently here. I have searched the internet and the Philippine and Indian Poetry sections of the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics to find some reference to the form without success.

Because of the above research and especially because the last line syllable count is left to the discretion of the poet in lieu of a "color". I am pretty sure this is a recently invented form. There is a question of whether the last line must be confined to a color only or the color can be the focus of a phrase. The oldest sidlaks I could find use the color in a phrase. However, the poems I've read limiting the last line to the color only were very effective. I think given the two options, whatever works best for your poem is the correct answer.

The elements of the Sidlak are:
         1. a pentastich, a poem in 5 lines.
         2. syllabic, 3-5-7-9- L5 syllable count is at the discretion of the poet.
         3. L5 presents a COLOR that portrays the whole poem or the feelings of the writer without syllable count restriction.

President George H.W. Bush

Nation's pride
respected leader
passes to the other side
he lived well, led with integrity
wrapped in red, white and blue
                    ~~Judi Van Gorder