Glosas Meet Music

Glosa - A Start

(image by rmp, that's me)

[taken upon completion of the first stanza of the first glosa that began this journey, all that time ago]

Before I take you (whosoever you may be) along for this ride. I figure it would be a good idea to provide a little background on what a glosa is. In additions, you’ll get a chance to hear how I came across this form and why I am compelled to explore this form with music as my inspiration. 


Glosa

References to the glosa not it as being from the late 14th and early 15th century within the Spanish court. Not a popular for in English, though did find some claim to fame with poet P.K. Page who becoming fascinated with the form in her later years utilized the form to honor poets that had inspired her during her formative years. These fourteen poems were published in a poetry collection, Hologram in 1994.

While it appears as though during its heyday in the Spanish courts the form maintained restrictions of meter and measure, contemporary pieces no longer adhere to that aspect of the structure. Additional references have been made to variations in the form including using the Envelope Glosa and the Double Glosa. In additional, while most references refer to it as a glosa, other also include glose and gloss as alternate names.

So, what is a glosa and how is it composed? The form contains two parts, cabeza (or texte) and glose (or glosa proper).

• The cabeza appears at the poems opening. It is a quatrain composed of four consecutive lines quoting another poet. The credit can be either embedded within the poem right after the cabeza or at the end in a footnote.
• The glose, which follows the cabeza, is made up of four 10-line stanzas. The lines from the cabeza are utilized in order as the last line of each stanza. Additionally, the sixth and ninth line rhyme with the tenth borrowed line. 

As with most forms, there are always those who will take liberties with the structure. This could include the number of lines in the cabeza and/or glose, incorporating the lines from the cabeza in additional lines within the glose, altering the order in which the cabeza lines are utilized within the glose, and, as is often the case with poems involving repetition, minor modifications to the cabeza lines within the glose.


How I Met the Glosa & the Role Music Plays Within This Exploration

One of the ways I have used in the past to keep myself inspired is through different communities and writing prompts. A place I have found myself cozying up in quite often for a time was d’Verse Poets Pub. They include a themed prompt called Form for All where they introduce forms and challenge the community to give it a whirl. On May 23, 2013, they presented the glosa and having learned to appreciate form and challenge of its constraints, I thought, “why not?” But in order to write a glosa, I needed to first identify four lines of a poem to act as my cabeza.

I don’t really think I gave it a second thought when I found my inspiration not in a poem, but within a song. Music has always been a cathartic entity in my life. When the world is at odds with my existence or vise versa, music has a way of allowing me to resync my internal storm. In 2013, the musically group of choice for me was O.A.R. In fact, my first three glosas all begin with cabezas from one of their songs. And in truth, in my mind song (or more specifically lyrics) is a type of poetry.

In the forward for Hologram, P.K. Page explains her fascination with the form and how she felt the form would allow her to pay tribute to poets who had impacted her as a writer. Upon reading that today, I realized that that is in essence how I feel as it relates to music. This project provides me with an opportunity to take songs that lyrically and instrumentally provide me with a sense of calm in an otherwise crazy existence.



Work Cited

Bowen, Deborah. “How to Honour Dead Poets: P.K. Page and the Glosa Form.” Comment, 8 October 2010, https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/2223/how-to-honour-dead-poets-pk-page-and-the-glosa-form/.

Eberhart, Lawrence. “Glosa, Glose, or Gloss.” Poets Collective, 3 March 2013, http://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/glosa-glose-or-gloss/.

Matteson, Zach. “Prompt: ‘Glosa’.” PRISM International, 5 November 2013, http://prismmagazine.ca/2013/11/05/prompt-glosa/.

Page, P.K.. Hologram. Brick Books, 1994.

Peralta, Samuel. “Form for All: Paying Tribute, Page and the Glosa.” dVerse ~ Poets Pub, 23 May 2013, https://dversepoets.co/2013/05/23/glosa/.

Tinker. “Glosa or Retruécano, Cabeza, Mote, Text. Double Glosa.” Poetry Magnum Opus, 2 June 2009, http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/forums/topic/1021-glosa-or-retru%C3%A9cano-cabeza-mote-text-double-glosa/.