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Friday, April 25, 2014

Anaphora Is the Opposite of Epistrophe, "Learning from Loose Ends"

Today's Napowrimo challenge, at least on the napowrimo.net page that I follow (there are others), is to write an anaphora, that is a poem to repeat the beginnings of lines words and/or phrases  from line to line, at least a couple of times, periodically, or throughout the poem.
Is the plural of anaphora anaphorae, or anaphoras??  I'll opt for the latter in the following poem.
By the way, epistrophe is the opposite (line endings instead of beginnings) of anaphora.
Symploce is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe, using both at the beginnings and endings of phrases or lines...Does that mean in the same line?  OR  in the same poem? Though this poem utilizes both, I don't believe it necessarily qualifies for the term symploce.  'You think??

Learning from Loose Ends

Anaphoras repeat beginnings,
Epistrophes repeat the ends.
If we could repeat our beginnings, dear,
Would it ever make amends
for stumbling at beginnings,
for fumbling beginnings,
for sad, mistaken beginnings,
for misunderstood beginnings,
among the glad beginnings,
or is this is the way it ends?
If we could repeat beginnings, dear,
could we have ended better friends?

                                ---Shirley Smith Franklin

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