While visiting Svalbard last year, I decided I wanted to write a story about a puffin. I was reading Lord Byron at the time, and I wanted to see if I could make his style work for a contemporary audience. Hence, I started a story about puffins in ottava rima, with a dactyl at the end of the first, third and fifth line of each stanza. This is my favorite, if not completely grammatically correct, stanza:
The cabin had been built by a Svalbardian
(a scientist who had failed to turn the heat off.)
On furniture part modern, part Edwardian
lay plenty crumbs and bread pieces to eat off.
Had there been light, one could have read The Guardian
or comics– which the cabin was replete of;
or books containing measurements of ice cores,
or logs of European football high scores.