Write a Cascade!

The lines tumble down as if in a cascade

The cascade is a form which can be fun and rewarding to write. It gives you some of the elbow room of free verse – there are no rhymes or required number of syllables per line – but each line of the first stanza repeats as the last line of the subsequent stanzas. Thus the first line of the poem will be the last line of the second stanza, the second line of the poem will be the last line of the third stanza, and so on. This lends some form to the verse, and provides a little challenge and creative stimulus for the poet.

The number of lines in the first stanza thus determines the number of stanzas in your whole poem. In a tercet scheme, the line arrangement would look like this: ABC, abA, cdB, efC. For a quatrain, you would use ABCD, abcA, defB, ghiC, jklD.

Let’s have an example, the first cascade I ever wrote, to test the form:

The boy asks his father
the meaning of rain,
but the father does not listen. 

The rain patters on the windowsill,
tickling the fantasy, when
the boy asks his father. 

But the father is working, connecting the dots.
He’s not thinking about
the meaning of rain. 

The drops call out to the open heart
and the flitting mind.
But the father does not listen.

Try writing one now; you’ll enjoy it! Feel free to submit your own cascades here on the blog.

Tips for Titles

Title time

by Pamela Love

What do these works have in common?

Black Beauty; The Princess and the Pea; Anne of Green Gables.

Answer:  Alliteration.  It’s the repetition of a beginning sound in words, and it’s a quick and easy way to make your titles memorable.  I’ve been writing children’s fiction since 1995, and I’ve sold nearly four dozen pieces with alliteration (for example, my picture books A Loon Alone and A Moose’s Morning) or some other form of word play in the title. It can be useful to think of a common saying or phrase and substitute a word for something relevant to your tale (as I did in my short stories “Where There’s a Well, There’s a Way,” and “Glide and Seek”). 

One way to do this is by naming your protagonist something which will make forming an alliterative title easy.  That’s why the little boy with autism is named Simon in my short story “Simon Says,” in the anthology Family Matters: Thirteen Short Stories. Overall, use this technique with care when writing for adults; you will find the adjustment easy to make. Consider the sexy contemporary romantic comedy Charmed and Dangerous by Lori Wilde, or Jasper Fforde's hilarious satire First among Sequels, or Wishful Drinking, the uproariously sober memoir by Carrie Fisher. All of these titles target a more mature audience with a sly wink in the title.

Titles in general are very important. Do what you can to make yours stand out from the others in the pile of manuscripts on the editor’s desk, and (with luck) the row of books on the library or bookstore shelf!

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After working as a teacher and in marketing, Pamela Love became a children’s writer in 1995. Scholastic/Children’s Books published her easy reader Two Feet Up, Two Feet Down. Down East Books published her four picture books: A Loon Alone, Lighthouse Seeds, A Cub Explores, and A Moose’s Morning. Her stories, poems, and plays have appeared in such magazines as Highlights for Children, Ladybug, Cricket, Pockets, and Jack and Jill, among others, and in two anthologies. She lives in Columbia, Maryland.