Introducing the Longette Lite

On 13 December, I launched my first new poetic form, the Longette.

Uptake has been on the slow side, with no other longettes apart from my demo model so far in existence…that I know of.

Feedback has been dribbling in that the longette is too complex. The rules are too demanding, too unusual, a bit silly… One reader even asked, “Is this a joke?”

Well no, and then also…yes? The Longette is intended to be a vehicle for social critique. One of the things I like to critique is bureaucracy, with its pointless rules, requirements and conventions. The longette rules are thus a bit of a parody in themselves.

But what I really don’t want to do, is discourage people from writing Longettes. From joining with me in my quest for social justice and system change and (before it’s too late) environmental action.

So, I’ve decided to compromise, and create a simplified version, the Longette Lite^™1—for those wanting to dabble but not fully commit to the Longette Proper.

Without further ado, then, here are the requirements for a Longette Lite:

• The form is designed for social critique/social commentary (eg you might consider social justice issues, system change or any future-facing ideas…)
• The title is long (around 40 syllables, or at least longer than the longest line of the poem)
• The poem should be long, but not too long (around 20 lines)
• The lines of the poem are also long (if you need a guide, around 20 syllables, but there is no need to count then)
• Use of emojis is encouraged but not essential
• There is no need for a rhyme scheme, but the pattern acab or the sequence 1312 must be incorporated somehow within the poem (be this as an acrostic,² with number of lines per stanza,³ with single set of 4 lines that rhyme in this scheme, with an emoji pattern [as seen below], etc)
• Collaboration is encouraged!

Is this cut-down version more reasonable? Please🙏 show me your love ❤ by submitting your Longette Lite here. Or give feedback 🙏in the Comments section below👇.

1. The Longette Lite is not really trademarked. ↩︎
2. In an acrostic poem, each line starts with the letters of a word. In the case of incorporating an acab acrostic, line 1 would start with the letter a, line 2 the letter c, line 3 the letter a and line 4 with the letter b, e.g.
   
   An acrostic is a kind of poem in which the first letter of each subsequent line spells out a word; it
   Can be used subversively if the poet does not draw attention to the acrostic nature of the poem
   And that is quite fun indeed; the poem could be saying something quite opposite to what the acrostic is encoding—a
   Beautiful secret subtext for the initiated and the observant.
   ↩︎
3. For example, a stanza with one line only, then a stanza of 3 lines, then a stanza of 1 line again, then a stanza of 2 lines. You could also to encode this in subsequent words of these syllable lengths—a 1-syllable word followed by a 3-syllable word, then another 1-syllable word, then a 2 syllable word—this could be just a one-off occurrence, anywhere in the poem. ↩︎