Horse: A Champion in His Field

This descriptive ‘story’ poem uses rhythm to give emphasis to the subject, and is FULL of figurative language.  It includes an enormous amount of alliteration, imagery and metaphors, with a small amount of personification and word play.

Hear the galloping feet, as the echoes resound
Of the clippety clop of his hooves on the ground.
Then he slows to a canter, a steadying jog
And he flicks up the soil under foot to a fog.

Then the frolicking stops and he stoops down to graze
As he basks in the sun, and the summer heat’s haze.
With a lift of his head and a shake of his mane
And the recharging finished, he gambols again.

Now he kicks up his heels with excitement afresh.
He unleashes his tail with a rampageous thresh.
The conductor has spoken, the group all join in:
Let the music of dozens of horse hooves begin.

The crescendo builds up as the horses explode
Into raptures of speed in competitive mode;
As the champion leads at the front of the race
So the also-rans^# follow at quickening pace.

Then as suddenly as the excitement began
So the lead horse dictates to his following clan
And the atmosphere alters, a calmness descends
As the mood quickly changes, the galloping ends.

Now they come to a halt and they gather in groups
While the winning performer addresses his troupes
With his nose in the air and an arrogant “NEIGH”
He has proven his point, and has no more to say!

# An ‘also-ran’ is the term that is used in racing for the horses that don’t win.

When you read this poem aloud you will notice that the words actually have a galloping feel to them, because of the rhythm that I have used and the way that I have chosen words carefully to fit into that rhythm pattern.  Look at the BEGINNERS’ PAGE, MAKING SENSE OF RHYME AND RHYTHM, and particularly RHYTHM POETRY, to understand the basic rules of how to produce this effect.  When I first began writing poetry I was surprised to find that there are ‘rules’ and ‘structure’ to writing, and that when I learnt about them I was actually able to improve poems that I had already written.  Far from restricting my writing, the ‘structure’ gave me a pattern to work with that helped me to know what worked and what gave my poems a good feel to them, so I found myself able to write in more styles and with a greater effect.  More importantly, I was able to understand what it was that I disliked about the poems that I had already written that just didn’t sound quite right!

Tagged as: alliteration, alliteration poem, animal poem, figurative language, horse poem, hyperbole, metaphor poetry, metaphors, personification, personification poem, personification poems, rhyming poem, rhythm poetry, word play