An English Patchword ( rewrite)

[Michael Anon]

Cover me ever so quietly
with a quilt of everything England
A ginger-bread bed-spread
With every coast and Inland.
 
A patchwork feast of fields and shires
Boundaries and what-not-ments.
Squares of cloth with lots of plots
And patches and small allotments
 
Within it all those Tall Tales
Woven well together:
Green Men and grandes dames
All in an English weather.
 
A hunter and a runaway hare
In brilliant broad embroidery
Stitched and fixed higgledy-piggledy
Needle-neat and orderly.
 
Piping boys and girls and babes
Dressed in the altogether
With John Keats among the pleats
And dancing that goes on forever.
 
Knights on horseback, love in a haystack
All their groaning sewn in,
Grandfather clocks and Goldilocks
In the house she's all alone in.

Tea-cup spills and Welsh Hills
Cat's hairs on the borders
Cotswolds and blanket folds
Disruptions and disorders.
 
Little Jack Horner there in the corner
Rucked in and tucked up
While Little Bo Peep has let her sheep
Get all muddled and mucked up.
 
Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with
Garlands on a Mayday
Cats in hats with cricket bats
And crones playing croquet.
 
A Brueghel scene you might have seen
But never on a bed-spread:
The heroes and the heroines
From all the tales that you’ve read.
 
Simple Simon and the Pie Man
The Jack and the Beanstalk peddler
Who'll turn you into Puss in Boots
A prince or Cinderella.
 
There's a stain on the pane where Sir Gawain
Stands outside a dragon's den;
And biscuit crumbs where Humpty comes
With all the king's horses and all the king's men.
 
Cover me over with the quilt
Quieten what I’m discovering:
My adulthood stole my childhood
And I am still recovering.

[dukealien]

Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread with all its coasts and Inlands.
 
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments,
A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments.  "filled" is weak - formed or sewn?
 
Within it all the tall tales woven well together:
Green men and grandes dames all in an English weather.  perhaps capitalize "men" (part of Green Man) and italicize 'grandes dames"
 
A hunter and a hare in a brilliant broad embroidery,  remove "a" for flow
Stitched and fixed both higgledy piggledy, needle-neat and orderly.   good for sound but not for sense
 
Piping boys and girls and babes dressed in the altogether,  perhaps comma after "girls"
With John Keats among the pleats and the dancing that goes on forever.  drop "the" for rhythm
 
Knights on Horseback, love in a haystack all their groaning sewn in,  is "Horseback" capitalized for a reason?
Grandfather clocks and Goldilocks in the house she's all alone in.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
 
Teacup spills and Welsh Hills, cat's hairs on the borders,
Cotswolds and blanket folds - all disruptions and disorders.  perhaps cut "all" for rhythm
 
Little Jack Horner there in the corner, all rucked in and tucked up,
While Little Bo Peep has let her sheep get all muddled and mucked up.
 
Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with garlands on a Mayday,
Cripples with their cricket bats and crones playing croquet.  "Cripples with... cricket bats" is odd
 
A Brueghel scene you might have seen but never on a bedspread:
The heroes and the heroines in all the tales you've ever read.
 
Simple Simon and the pie man and the Jack and the Beanstalk pedlar   spelt "peddler"
Who'll turn you into Puss in Boots, a prince or Cinderella.
 
There's a stain on the pane where Sir Gawain is outside a dragon's den;
And biscuit crumbs where Humpty comes with all the king's horses and all the king's men.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England.

In intensive critique, this is a list poem made up of rhymed or semi-rhymed couplets, with occasional refrains (Cover me...).

The lines have no set meter or rhythm, though some of the couplets have the same or matching rhythm for their two lines.  As a general rule, meter goes with rhyme.  If the two lines of each couplet scanned exactly the same, this would be more pleasing; as it is, the rhymes are not forced (good!) but consistent meter, at least between the lines of couplets, would be an improvement.

This is a good concept, but difficult in execution since each of the nursery rhymes from which the lines are quoted (and its title) has a different meter.  I suggest choosing a comic meter (example, "and there in the corner a-watchin' his luck is the girl that's known as Sue")  and fitting each of your story references into it.  Shorter lines would make this easier.

Another angle to try is including your narrator's reaction to the stories - which were liked, which were scary, and which not understood when young (those trembling haystacks).

For starters, try lining up a few of your best couplets for practice, in a consistent meter.  Interested in seeing your edits.

[Michael Anon]

Thanks for your trouble in close reading this you Duke. I'll seriously play with your suggestions.

Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread with all its coasts and Inlands.
 
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments,
A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments.  "filled" is weak - formed or sewn?
 
Within it all the tall tales woven well together:
Green men and grandes dames all in an English weather.  perhaps capitalize "men" (part of Green Man) and italicize 'grandes dames"
 
A hunter and a hare in a brilliant broad embroidery,  remove "a" for flow
Stitched and fixed both higgledy piggledy, needle-neat and orderly.   good for sound but not for sense
 
Piping boys and girls and babes dressed in the altogether,  perhaps comma after "girls"
With John Keats among the pleats and the dancing that goes on forever.  drop "the" for rhythm
 
Knights on Horseback, love in a haystack all their groaning sewn in,  is "Horseback" capitalized for a reason?
Grandfather clocks and Goldilocks in the house she's all alone in.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
 
Teacup spills and Welsh Hills, cat's hairs on the borders,
Cotswolds and blanket folds - all disruptions and disorders.  perhaps cut "all" for rhythm
 
Little Jack Horner there in the corner, all rucked in and tucked up,
While Little Bo Peep has let her sheep get all muddled and mucked up.
 
Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with garlands on a Mayday,
Cripples with their cricket bats and crones playing croquet.  "Cripples with... cricket bats" is odd
 
A Brueghel scene you might have seen but never on a bedspread:
The heroes and the heroines in all the tales you've ever read.
 
Simple Simon and the pie man and the Jack and the Beanstalk pedlar   spelt "peddler"
Who'll turn you into Puss in Boots, a prince or Cinderella.
 
There's a stain on the pane where Sir Gawain is outside a dragon's den;
And biscuit crumbs where Humpty comes with all the king's horses and all the king's men.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England.

In intensive critique, this is a list poem made up of rhymed or semi-rhymed couplets, with occasional refrains (Cover me...).

The lines have no set meter or rhythm, though some of the couplets have the same or matching rhythm for their two lines.  As a general rule, meter goes with rhyme.  If the two lines of each couplet scanned exactly the same, this would be more pleasing; as it is, the rhymes are not forced (good!) but consistent meter, at least between the lines of couplets, would be an improvement.

This is a good concept, but difficult in execution since each of the nursery rhymes from which the lines are quoted (and its title) has a different meter.  I suggest choosing a comic meter (example, "and there in the corner a-watchin' his luck is the girl that's known as Sue")  and fitting each of your story references into it.  Shorter lines would make this easier.

Another angle to try is including your narrator's reaction to the stories - which were liked, which were scary, and which not understood when young (those trembling haystacks).

For starters, try lining up a few of your best couplets for practice, in a consistent meter.  Interested in seeing your edits.

[milo]

Hello Michael and welcome to the pen!!

I have read through tis a few times and there is much I like which I will try to cover first.

The title - simple direct yet curious.  It drew me in as a good title should.

The phrasing was simple yet interesting throughout and avoided cliche.  The rhymes - as well - were clever and original.  There was plenty of interesting imagery, there was much to enjoy during the read.

Things I think should be considered:  The couplets, for one.  I am not sure about this choice.  On the one hand - couplets match the light verse tone of much of it and have been the go to choice for light verse for the bast 40 odd years so it seems a logical choice.  Still - I don't think couplets le lend themselves as much to long lines or poems that continue on for more than a bit.  To a modern ear (well, mine anyway) they seem to grow not just predictable but a little tedious over time.  What other options might be interesting?  Well, a nice ballad meter would really let this shine and break up the long lines, the couplets, add some musicality to the mix and push the pace a bit.  You already include plenty of internal rhyme anyway.  The refrain?  I am not sure about that either - is the repetition having as much effect as it could without the rhyme?  I would personally say no - you are using couplets - maybe consider rhyming the repetend.

For things that didn't work for me -the glaring sore thumb - the meter.  It seemed to receive no thought at all and forces the reader into a stutter-step when it should really sing.  And, finally, the metaphor - I feel like you could have leaned into a more consistent metaphor throughout -a turn somewhere?  i don't know.  If there is a driving metaphor I may have missed it other than "here are some cool English things" I am missing it.  (might just be me though)

Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread with all its coasts and Inlands.

So, the intro had me intrigued.  You started with a loose heptameter and then fell on the second line to a murky kind of accentual pentamer.  If this had been ballad verse it would look something like:

Cover me over quietly
with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread - spread politely
over the coasts and inlands

(not meant as a rewrite - for demonstration purposes only)

 
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments,
A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments.

One thing you can try when you find yourself in this situation is to move the "found" rhyme to the a1 slot and your original phrase to the a2 slot which makes it seem less forced:

A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments

This also allows the clever callback rather than the less interesting continuation.  The abundance of "ands" becomes obvious which just makes it feel like you are struggling to maintain a meter that the reader probably thought would be difficult to maintain.  "lots" is weak filler.  You maintain almost perfect iambic heptamer here (with the padding) with the exception of the "and" before small which you could easily fix.

 
Within it all the tall tales woven well together:
Green men and grandes dames all in an English weather.

Here is where the meter really just falls apart and gets abandoned to the whim.  Because it is couplets - the ear seeks the musicality of meter but you have an assortment of awkward demotions (think tales) and inconsistent feet both in number and choice.

 
A hunter and a hare in a brilliant broad embroidery,
Stitched and fixed both higgledy piggledy, needle-neat and orderly.
 
Piping boys and girls and babes dressed in the altogether,
With John Keats among the pleats and the dancing that goes on forever.
 
Knights on Horseback, love in a haystack all their groaning sewn in,
Grandfather clocks and Goldilocks in the house she's all alone in.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
 
Teacup spills and Welsh Hills, cat's hairs on the borders,
Cotswolds and blanket folds - all disruptions and disorders.
 
Little Jack Horner there in the corner, all rucked in and tucked up,
While Little Bo Peep has let her sheep get all muddled and mucked up.
 
Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with garlands on a Mayday,
Cripples with their cricket bats and crones playing croquet.
 
A Brueghel scene you might have seen but never on a bedspread:
The heroes and the heroines in all the tales you've ever read.
 
Simple Simon and the pie man and the Jack and the Beanstalk pedlar
Who'll turn you into Puss in Boots, a prince or Cinderella.
 
There's a stain on the pane where Sir Gawain is outside a dragon's den;
And biscuit crumbs where Humpty comes with all the king's horses and all the king's men.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England.

 
It continues in the same kind of clumsy stumbling to the end which is unfortunate - mostly because the phrasing and wording would easily be interesting enough to carry it along even without a turn or interesting metaphor but I think you either need to have precision perfect mechanics or a striking metaphor to have this work and it doesn't quite achieve either

None of this to say I don't like it or think it has promise because I do and I am confident you can easily iron out some of this on revisions.

Thanks for posting

[Michael Anon]

  Thanks for your trouble Milo. I will consider all your suggestions in my next draught.
Hello Michael and welcome to the pen!!

I have read through tis a few times and there is much I like which I will try to cover first.

The title - simple direct yet curious.  It drew me in as a good title should.

The phrasing was simple yet interesting throughout and avoided cliche.  The rhymes - as well - were clever and original.  There was plenty of interesting imagery, there was much to enjoy during the read.

Things I think should be considered:  The couplets, for one.  I am not sure about this choice.  On the one hand - couplets match the light verse tone of much of it and have been the go to choice for light verse for the bast 40 odd years so it seems a logical choice.  Still - I don't think couplets le lend themselves as much to long lines or poems that continue on for more than a bit.  To a modern ear (well, mine anyway) they seem to grow not just predictable but a little tedious over time.  What other options might be interesting?  Well, a nice ballad meter would really let this shine and break up the long lines, the couplets, add some musicality to the mix and push the pace a bit.  You already include plenty of internal rhyme anyway.  The refrain?  I am not sure about that either - is the repetition having as much effect as it could without the rhyme?  I would personally say no - you are using couplets - maybe consider rhyming the repetend.

For things that didn't work for me -the glaring sore thumb - the meter.  It seemed to receive no thought at all and forces the reader into a stutter-step when it should really sing.  And, finally, the metaphor - I feel like you could have leaned into a more consistent metaphor throughout -a turn somewhere?  i don't know.  If there is a driving metaphor I may have missed it other than "here are some cool English things" I am missing it.  (might just be me though)

Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread with all its coasts and Inlands.

So, the intro had me intrigued.  You started with a loose heptameter and then fell on the second line to a murky kind of accentual pentamer.  If this had been ballad verse it would look something like:

Cover me over quietly
with a quilt of everything England
A gingerbread bedspread - spread politely
over the coasts and inlands

(not meant as a rewrite - for demonstration purposes only)

 
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments,
A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments.

One thing you can try when you find yourself in this situation is to move the "found" rhyme to the a1 slot and your original phrase to the a2 slot which makes it seem less forced:

A patchwork filled with fields and shires and boundaries and whatnot-ments
Squares of cloth with lots of plots and patches and small allotments

This also allows the clever callback rather than the less interesting continuation.  The abundance of "ands" becomes obvious which just makes it feel like you are struggling to maintain a meter that the reader probably thought would be difficult to maintain.  "lots" is weak filler.  You maintain almost perfect iambic heptamer here (with the padding) with the exception of the "and" before small which you could easily fix.

 
Within it all the tall tales woven well together:
Green men and grandes dames all in an English weather.

Here is where the meter really just falls apart and gets abandoned to the whim.  Because it is couplets - the ear seeks the musicality of meter but you have an assortment of awkward demotions (think tales) and inconsistent feet both in number and choice.

 
A hunter and a hare in a brilliant broad embroidery,
Stitched and fixed both higgledy piggledy, needle-neat and orderly.
 
Piping boys and girls and babes dressed in the altogether,
With John Keats among the pleats and the dancing that goes on forever.
 
Knights on Horseback, love in a haystack all their groaning sewn in,
Grandfather clocks and Goldilocks in the house she's all alone in.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England
 
Teacup spills and Welsh Hills, cat's hairs on the borders,
Cotswolds and blanket folds - all disruptions and disorders.
 
Little Jack Horner there in the corner, all rucked in and tucked up,
While Little Bo Peep has let her sheep get all muddled and mucked up.
 
Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with garlands on a Mayday,
Cripples with their cricket bats and crones playing croquet.
 
A Brueghel scene you might have seen but never on a bedspread:
The heroes and the heroines in all the tales you've ever read.
 
Simple Simon and the pie man and the Jack and the Beanstalk pedlar
Who'll turn you into Puss in Boots, a prince or Cinderella.
 
There's a stain on the pane where Sir Gawain is outside a dragon's den;
And biscuit crumbs where Humpty comes with all the king's horses and all the king's men.
 
Cover me over quietly with a quilt of everything England.

 
It continues in the same kind of clumsy stumbling to the end which is unfortunate - mostly because the phrasing and wording would easily be interesting enough to carry it along even without a turn or interesting metaphor but I think you either need to have precision perfect mechanics or a striking metaphor to have this work and it doesn't quite achieve either

None of this to say I don't like it or think it has promise because I do and I am confident you can easily iron out some of this on revisions.

Thanks for posting

[Michael Anon]

Hi Milo
I've done a rewrite which I think presents it in a better metre.

[dukealien]

Hi Milo
I've done a rewrite which I think presents it in a better metre.

Your second version, which effectively breaks each line in two (with other edits) to turn your couplets into quatrains is, I think, an improvement.  The rhyme scheme becomes  ABAC DEFE etc. instead of AA BB etc..  which is suitable.

Meter is another matter.  Simply, it's each line having the same - or at least similar - pattern of and number of stressed and unstressed syllables.  Take, for example, your

Tipsy maids in Gypsy Glades with

Garlands on a Mayday
Cats in hats with cricket bats
And crones playing croquet.

This scans as

/./././.
/././/
/./././
.//../

where "/" is stressed and "." is unstressed.  The last line would read, conversationally, as 

and crones playing croquet

but someone reading it aloud would try to make it fit the previous lines' accented first syllable and the second line's ending, and say

and crones playing cro-quet

but could also be confused into reading 

and crones playing croquet

with unnatural stress in "playing."  As indeed the double stress in "croquet" is in the preferred reading.

Note that leaving off the last syllable in the third line (or call it an extra on the first) has little effect.

---

Working with meter takes practice; a forced rhyme can be funny, but a limping meter can be discordant.  Read your lines out loud, even scan/analyze them, as well as other poems that have definite, stable rhyme and meter.  If you stick with it, you can find the voice in  your head keeping the beat without having to read aloud as you write.

Hope that helps!

[RiverNotch]

Is the title intentionally misspelled?

That aside, and getting into the weeds of meter, since this is a decidedly English poem, English depends more on stress, not syllable count, so I'd largely ignore the latter. Conventionally, this means writing with a certain number of set feet---the two most famous examples are iambic pentameter, which goes

weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED

and then there's ballad meter, which goes

weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED

but another common example can be found in limericks, which goes

weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak

and at its bearest---for me, at its easiest---you just have a common count of stresses, something like

weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED
STRESSED weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED
weak weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED

for an accentual tetrameter. This is the sort of form one most encounters in folk poetry, nursery rhyme, and pop song.

So turning to your verse:

Cover me ever so quietly
with a quilt of everything England
A ginger-bread bed-spread
With every coast and Inland.
 
COver me EVer so QUIETly
with a QUILT of EV'rything ENGland,
a GINger-bread BED-spread
with EV'ry COAST and INland,

The third line lacks a stressed syllable.

a PATCHwork FEAST of FIELDS and SHIRES
BOUNDaRIES and WHAT-not-MENTS,
SQUARES of CLOTH with LOTS of PLOTS
and PATches and SMALL aLLOTments

The whole stanza doesn't follow the model of the first, being accentual tetrameter than accentual trimeter, and the last line is missing a stressed syllable relative to this new model (not to mention it doesn't actually rhyme---rhyme in English strongly depends on stress, such that our ears tend to tolerate slant rhymes where the same pattern of stress is followed by the words over rhymes whose last syllable are exactly the same sound, but whose patterns of stress are entirely different).

withIN it ALL those TALL tales (or maybe withIN it ALL those TALL TALES?)
WOven WELL toGEther:
GREEN MEN and GRANDES DAMES (or, more comfortably, green MEN and grandes DAMES---scanning is as much an art as a science, after all)
ALL in an ENGlish WEAther.

Again, the pattern is different: charitably, it's now the less formal form of ballad meter. 

The rest I leave up to you for a variety of reasons, but let us be funny and say it's because I am lazy. Also because of this affected laziness prompting me to reiterate the old maxim of form informing function would I hold off on critiquing the matter of this piece....though, overall, it is cute.

[Michael Anon]

The title wasn't misspelled but I've decided to simply it as "An English Quilt".

Am working on the scansion with your suggestions in mind. Thanks for those.

Is the title intentionally misspelled?

That aside, and getting into the weeds of meter, since this is a decidedly English poem, English depends more on stress, not syllable count, so I'd largely ignore the latter. Conventionally, this means writing with a certain number of set feet---the two most famous examples are iambic pentameter, which goes

weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED

and then there's ballad meter, which goes

weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED / weak STRESSED

but another common example can be found in limericks, which goes

weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak
weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak / weak STRESSED weak

and at its bearest---for me, at its easiest---you just have a common count of stresses, something like

weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED
STRESSED weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED
weak weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED
weak STRESSED weak weak STRESSED weak STRESSED weak STRESSED

for an accentual tetrameter. This is the sort of form one most encounters in folk poetry, nursery rhyme, and pop song.

So turning to your verse:

Cover me ever so quietly
with a quilt of everything England
A ginger-bread bed-spread
With every coast and Inland.
 
COver me EVer so QUIETly
with a QUILT of EV'rything ENGland,
a GINger-bread BED-spread
with EV'ry COAST and INland,

The third line lacks a stressed syllable.

a PATCHwork FEAST of FIELDS and SHIRES
BOUNDaRIES and WHAT-not-MENTS,
SQUARES of CLOTH with LOTS of PLOTS
and PATches and SMALL aLLOTments

The whole stanza doesn't follow the model of the first, being accentual tetrameter than accentual trimeter, and the last line is missing a stressed syllable relative to this new model (not to mention it doesn't actually rhyme---rhyme in English strongly depends on stress, such that our ears tend to tolerate slant rhymes where the same pattern of stress is followed by the words over rhymes whose last syllable are exactly the same sound, but whose patterns of stress are entirely different).

withIN it ALL those TALL tales (or maybe withIN it ALL those TALL TALES?)
WOven WELL toGEther:
GREEN MEN and GRANDES DAMES (or, more comfortably, green MEN and grandes DAMES---scanning is as much an art as a science, after all)
ALL in an ENGlish WEAther.

Again, the pattern is different: charitably, it's now the less formal form of ballad meter. 

The rest I leave up to you for a variety of reasons, but let us be funny and say it's because I am lazy. Also because of this affected laziness prompting me to reiterate the old maxim of form informing function would I hold off on critiquing the matter of this piece....though, overall, it is cute.