Since I feel that I should write meaningful stories and messages in the form of poems, I continue my social commentary series with a piece on animal adoption. In the spirit of The Writer’s Tower theme for July, PARADOX, I am writing a poem inspired by two words – ‘pretty ugly’. Pretty ugly is an oxymoron, which is defined as a compressed paradox – a figure of speech in which contradictory terms are paired together.
The one I found
An evening nigh four years ago
I was driving home just so
Double speed bumps; slowed down
A tiny shape walked in front; no sound
Where did it go? Oh, no!
Screeched to a halt; was it below?
In the beam of the headlights’ glow
A tiny dirty little kitty, I found
An evening nigh four years ago
Two-week-old kitten; no mum in sight; woe
So little tortoise shell came home, you know
Pretty ugly little thingy; white, black and brown
It wasn’t easy, but bit by bit, she grew round
Pretty ugly little thingy grew into a beauty; best in town
An evening nigh four years ago; my darling, found
An original poem by
Khor Hui Min
17 July 2014
Message
This poem is about animal adoption. Homeless and neglected pets discarded by their owners are a growing concern all over the world. Rather than pay a lot of money to buy a cute fluffy pet from a pet shop, why not give a poor pet in a pet shelter a second chance at finding a forever home? People can get a second chance, and so can animals, too. So, if I can find a cat that behaves like a loyal and protective dog, you can also find a wonderful companion or two or three. 🙂
Visit your local pet shelter today, if you want to adopt a pet. You can also visit an online website for pet adoption. For example, you can visit the Petfinder website. I put the photos of 4 kittens from a stray up for adoption on this website, and they were all adopted within 2 weeks. So, the website is indeed effective.
Poetic style
This poem was written in the style of a Rondeau – a short poem consisting of fifteen lines that have two rhymes throughout. The first few words or phrase from the first line are repeated twice in the poem as a refrain. So, you can see the poem with the rhyming shown below. The capital A is the refrain (a sentence repeated from the first line).
(a) An evening nigh four years ago
(a) I was driving home just so
(b) Double speed bumps; slowed down
(b) A tiny shape walked in front, no sound
(a) What was that? Did I hit it? Oh, no!
(a) Screeched to a halt; was it below?
(a) In the beam of the headlights’ glow
(b) A tiny dirty little kitty, I found
(A) An evening nigh four years ago
(a) Two-week-old kitten; no mother in sight; woe
(a) So little tortoise shell came home, you know
(b) Pretty ugly little thingy; white, black and brown
(b) It wasn’t easy, but bit by bit, she grew round
(a) Pretty little ugly thingy grew into a beauty; best in town
(A) An evening nigh four years ago; my darling, found
To read more about the Rondeau poem style, visit the Young Writers’ Website.
Project Prose 