Minute Poem

Minute Poetry

The Minute Poem was created by Verna Lee Hinegardner, poet laureate of Arkansas, in the 1960s. It is a rhyming verse form consisting of 12 lines of 60 syllables written in strict iambic meter. The poem is formatted into 3 stanzas of 8,4,4,4; 8,4,4,4; 8,4,4,4 syllables. The rhyme scheme is as follows: aabb, ccdd, eeff. The minute is capitalized and punctuated like prose and captures a slice of life.

Schematic:

xxxxxxxa
xxxa
xxxb
xxxb

xxxxxxxc
xxxc
xxxd
xxxd

xxxxxxxe
xxxe
xxxf
xxxf

where "x" is the syllable count, "a" through "f" rhyme


Example :

I Need Someone
By Linda Newman

I need someone to hold me tight
Through dark of night,
Who won’t go ’way
At break of day.

Someone whose love will mend the seams
Of broken dreams,
And give me back
The trust I lack.

For love, it holds the magic key
To set me free,
To heal my soul
And make me whole.


You'll have to forgive me for not doing my own example, but as per the way my luck has been going lately, I got a tooth ache which made it really hard to concentrate on anything but the pain. :-0