Since 202I have enjoyed – and become attached to, in a good way – belonging to the community of sharing poets at dVerse Poets Pub.

This week Laura Bloomsbury suggests we contribute a poem including the word dawn (or a derivative) and I am delighted to illustrate mine with a photo that one of my dancing friends captured when the Aurora borealis (litereally ‘northern dawn’) was surprisingly visible from East Anglia (UK) this May, just days before I travelled back up to northern Scotland, the place where the Aurora is usually more easily witnessed.

Ironically, in Sutherland (where I live during the spring summer and autumn) the dawn is so early around the summer solstic that the night available for Aurora watching is very short! And during spring, the dawn chorus of birds starts very early – hence my choice of title.

As for the style of poem that Laura suggested, I’ll use her own ample instructions, hoping that I have obeyed them, in my own Aurora-flavoured poem that follows them.

And now for today’s MTB [ ‘Meeting the Bar’] prompt we are writing in the poetry style of the A L’Arora, a form created by Laura Lamarca:

Poetry style:

  • 4 stanzas (or more)
  • 8-lines per stanza (can split with line break after 6)
  • only lines 6 & 8 are to rhyme as x,x,x,x,x,a,x,a; x,x,x,x,x,b,x,b etc
  • no syllable count per line

Poetry Subject: Lamarca’s A L’Arora derives from “Aurora” – Italian for “dawn”:.

  • Write about the dawn – literally, metaphorically, objectively, personally or however it strikes you
  • OR
  • Write of dawn as a verb (dawns/dawning), a slow or sudden realization

Useful Links:
A L’ Arora
More Dawn poetry

Silent dawn at 58ºN

Why did I have to go so far
away to find myself alone once more
to see the sun rise, north north east
behind the Ord of Sutherland?
Nearby I shivered in my nightingown
still wakeful, ten to three -
amazed to see the shadow walk
the nearly full three hundred-odd degree.

Was called there by the pale North Star
(Polaris, Tara, call her what you will):
I stood beneath the Plough at Anne's
back door and wished upon the Great
Old Bear, and on Andromeda,
and Little Bear as well
(rotating round while casting light
near Dhruva's steady gaze) as if in spell.

We bought the house. It didn't have
a lesser view of sky than any dream.
Had forest; torc of hills; the sea
(in council with the Planets, Moon);
and Mother Earth, draped by the Cailleach
in snow that mountain hare
matched perfectly while hiding from
red kites, and buzzards, wolves of yesteryear.

Sometimes in winter I behold
the  jadeite green of Northern Light-show, there
behind the hill. The single lamp
next to my kailyard stops the Merry Dance
from being more renowned,
but from the Ord I guess 
Aurora borealis dawns
unrivalled in her maiden loveliness.

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 11 July 2024





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