Pretty Ugly

Since I feel that I should write meaningful stories and messages in the form of poems, I continue my social commentary series with a piece on animal adoption. In the spirit of The Writer’s Tower theme for July, PARADOX, I am writing a poem inspired by two words – ‘pretty ugly’. Pretty ugly is an oxymoron, which is defined as a compressed paradox – a figure of speech in which contradictory terms are paired together.

 

The one I found

An evening nigh four years ago
I was driving home just so
Double speed bumps; slowed down
A tiny shape walked in front; no sound
Where did it go? Oh, no!
Screeched to a halt; was it below?
In the beam of the headlights’ glow
A tiny dirty little kitty, I found
An evening nigh four years ago
Two-week-old kitten; no mum in sight; woe
So little tortoise shell came home, you know
Pretty ugly little thingy; white, black and brown
It wasn’t easy, but bit by bit, she grew round
Pretty ugly little thingy grew into a beauty; best in town
An evening nigh four years ago; my darling, found

An original poem by
Khor Hui Min
17 July 2014

Keisha, the tortoise shell cat

Message

This poem is about animal adoption. Homeless and neglected pets discarded by their owners are a growing concern all over the world. Rather than pay a lot of money to buy a cute fluffy pet from a pet shop, why not give a poor pet in a pet shelter a second chance at finding a forever home? People can get a second chance, and so can animals, too. So, if I can find a cat that behaves like a loyal and protective dog, you can also find a wonderful companion or two or three. 🙂

Visit your local pet shelter today, if you want to adopt a pet. You can also visit an online website for pet adoption. For example, you can visit the Petfinder website. I put the photos of 4 kittens from a stray up for adoption on this website, and they were all adopted within 2 weeks. So, the website is indeed effective.

Poetic style

This poem was written in the style of a Rondeau – a short poem consisting of fifteen lines that have two rhymes throughout. The first few words or phrase from the first line are repeated twice in the poem as a refrain. So, you can see the poem with the rhyming shown below. The capital A is the refrain (a sentence repeated from the first line).

(a) An evening nigh four years ago
(a) I was driving home just so
(b)  Double speed bumps; slowed down
(b)  A tiny shape walked in front, no sound
(a)  What was that? Did I hit it? Oh, no!
(a)  Screeched to a halt; was it below?
(a)  In the beam of the headlights’ glow
(b)  A tiny dirty little kitty, I found
(A)  An evening nigh four years ago
(a)  Two-week-old kitten; no mother in sight; woe
(a)  So little tortoise shell came home, you know
(b)  Pretty ugly little thingy; white, black and brown
(b)  It wasn’t easy, but bit by bit, she grew round
(a)  Pretty little ugly thingy grew into a beauty; best in town
(A)  An evening nigh four years ago; my darling, found

To read more about the Rondeau poem style, visit the Young Writers’ Website.