The Dahlia is a gift from Mexico. Spaniards reported finding the plants growing in Mexico in 1525. The earliest known description is by Francisco Hernandez, physician to Philip II, who was ordered to visit Mexico in 1570 to study the "natural products of that country". They were used as a source of food by the indigenous peoples, and were both gathered in the wild and cultivated. The Aztecs used them to treat epilepsy, and employed the long hollow stem of the (Dahlia imperalis) for water pipes. In 1789, "plant parts" were sent from Mexico to Abbe Antonio Jose Cavanilles, Director of the Royal Gardens of Madrid, where he cultivated them. In 1791 he called the new growths "Dahlia" after Anders Dahl a famous botonist. In 1798, Cavanilles sent seeds to the Marchioness of Bute, wife of The Earl of Bute, the English Ambassador to Spain, who sent them to England. There they were cultivated and hybridized by the British elite. Thus, my reference to Baronets.

This poem is a Qautern Sonnet
A Quatern is a poem consisting of four Quatrains, where the first line of the poem ripples through each stanza. It becomes the second line of the second stanza, the third line of the third stanza, and the last of the fourth. It makes for a lovely waterfall effect as the line ripples from beginning to end of the poem. This creates a rhyme scheme of:

Abab bAba abAb babA
where the capital letter signifies the repeated line.
Written in tetrameter.

Therefore, to make a Quatern Sonnet, you merely turn the last quartain into a rhymed couplet, using the repeated line as the last line of the poem, but retaining the waterfall effect. The rhyme scheme becomes:
Abab bAba abAb aA.
For this poem I used an anapestic tetrameter (da Dum da da Dum da da Dum).

This picture was taken by the author himself at the Minnesota Arboretum on October 16, 2014.

You need to login or register to write reviews. It's quick! We only ask four questions to new members.