Category Archives: nature

Guzzanelle

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This is a modern form created by mixing a Ghazal with a Villanelle.
Form Type: Syllabic
Origins: American
Creator: Thomas Rodes
Number of Lines: 22
Rhyme Scheme: A1+r,b,A2+r – a+r,b,A1+r – a+r,b,A2+r – a+r,b,A1+r – a+r,b,A2+r – a+r,b,A1+r,A2+r
Meter: Undefined
Rules
1. The form is created from 6 triplets and a quatrain.
2. Line one is repeated as lines 6, 12, 18, 21.
3. Line three is repeated as lines 9, 15, 22.
4. The ‘a’ rhyming lines all have the same refrain following after the rhyme.
5. Each stanza may enjamb within itself but must be a complete unit in itself, there is no enjambing across stanzas.
6. Each stanza should be free standing they don’t need other sense to be a complete meaning unit. There doesn’t need to be a linkage between stanzas.
Example Poem

Real Help Possible      (Guzzanelle)
Have humankind become concerned too late.
Are legates from the stars our only hope?
Have our sentient cousins returned too late.
If violence wins, then we have earned our fate?
Have we played out our ecologic rope?
Have humankind become concerned too late.
The recondite crop marks unlearned folks hate
are verified as messages of hope.
Have our sentient cousins returned too late.
Symbolic mathematics discerned of late
that human’s self-hate carved a slippery slope.
Have humankind become concerned too late.
Some hate the Toran and some spurn the Pope.
In all fields of dogma, men only grope.
Have our sentient cousins returned too late.
We may leave fossil fuels unburned yet sate
our needs expanding in desire and scope.
Have humankind become concerned too late.
A profusion of wealth unturned awaits;
What man knows now is subpar, but we’ll cope.
Have humankind become concerned too late.
Have our sentient cousins returned too late.
© Lawrencealot – February 15, 2013
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Loose Sapphic

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There are variations of the Sapphic Stanza and I have chosen the Loose Sapphic form created by Marie Marshall. The form is composed over four lines, the first three being hendecasyllabic and the fourth being pentasyllabic.
The focus is on syllabic meter rather than accentual giving the poet more room to explore poetical device and grammatical schema within the verse structure. From the creator’s own examples I have found the poems to be more vibrant and dramatic than their strictly metric counterparts.
Using ‘X’ to represent each syllable the schema of the Loose Sapphic form can be shown as thus:
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X
Example Poem
Lady Bird Adrift

My intent to fly by-and-by was boosted.
I’m content to flutter by the butterfly
effect.  Some butterfly in Balboa flapped
boldly days ago.
A seagull here an eagle there added puffs
against the calm.  A heated hillside thermal
energy aggregated puff-puff forces-
calm contingencies.
I’ll leave Louise and Lester nibbling aphid
nosh, and catch this seed in transit through garden’s
wide expanse.  I may deplane any time or
merely take a chance.
I’m smarter than your average bug because a
beetle, not a bug be I.  This subterfuge
could save my life– wasps find me tasty and look
to see just me fly.
© Lawrencealot – June 26, 2012

Septolet

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The Septolet is a poem consisting of seven lines containing fourteen words
with a break in between the two parts. 
Both parts deal with the same thought and create a picture.
Example:
When Not Napping
Cat
creeping slowly
across the lawn
keenly focused.
Bird
eating berries
he’s almost done.
(c) Lawrencealot – April 21, 2012
 

Piaku

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The Piaku form takes part of its name from the fact that the syllable count for each line matches the digits in Pi.
Form Type: Syllabic
Origins: American
Creator: Mike Rollins
Number of Lines: Unlimited
Rhyme Scheme: Not Applicable
Meter: Not applicable
Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi>
Rules
1. Each line must be the same syllable length as the digit in that location in the PI sequence.
2. Poems may be of any length.
Pi:  3.14159 26535 89793
Examples
The Storm
Flash, Rumble
Rain
Awesome thunder
Wind
The wind will plunder
As did the pirates from on yonder
Raid, fall
Damn! My ship is sinking
The water stinging
Quivering
The storm moves onward
I’m tired, I’m cold, I sink, I die.
Mike Rollins
The Rain
I say old
man ,
listen to that
wind.
Walking is no fun
on a night when horizontal rains
transpire.
Scurry to the back yard
hurry quick then lie
by the fire.
(c) Lawrencealot – January 22, 2013
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Pleiades

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Pleiades form

This titled form was invented in 1999 by Craig Tigerman, Sol Magazine’s Lead Editor.
Only one word is allowed in the title followed by a single seven-line stanza.

The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.

Hortensia Anderson, a popular haiku and tanka poet, added her
own requirement of restricting the line length to six syllables.

 

 Example Poem

Storm
Striking frightful lightning
Sending shadows darting
Sudden squall surprising
Shrieking wind propelling
Screams against our faces,
Slamming hail bombarding –
Suddenly it’s over.
© Lawrencealot – April 16, 2012

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This was penned in trochaic trimeter, but that is not a requirement.
Pleiades

 

Redondilla

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NOTE:I have included the definition from two different sources here.  The first specifies the minimum number of quatrains, the 2nd does not.
The 2nd requires that the meter be TROCHAIC, the first is indifferent.
Well, boys and girls – indifferent wins.  I spent some time on 5 different sites and found NOT ONE trochaic poem in English, and several that did not have FOUR STANZAS.
This is simply a poem consisting of four quatrains in tetrameter, preferably iambic  or trochaic.  The rhyme scheme can be aabb, abab, or abcb.  (Although some sources will advise otherwise, syllable count is secondary to rhythmic flow).  Most descriptions do not mention meter.  I have found in the English language most use Iambic and any rhyme scheme, even mixing them.  (An insult, in my way of thinking.)
redondilla, a Spanish stanza form consisting of four trochaic lines,
usually of eight syllables each, with a rhyme scheme of abba.
Quatrains in this form with a rhyme scheme of abab,
sometimes also called redondillas, are more commonly known as serventesios.
Redondillas have been common in Castilian poetry since the 16th century.
The word is derived from the Spanish redondo, meaning “round.”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/494744/redondilla
Example Poem
Tropical Storm (A Redondilla or a Serventesio )
Surging currents falling rain
cloudy grey and gasping sky.
Seabirds leaving, wonder why.
Season of the hurricane.
Board your windows stock your shelves
Candles, girlfriend, water, food,
Stranded people making feel good.
Living, loving, by ourselves.
“Mom and pop are coming too??”
“Having to evacuate!”
“Gosh and gee that’s really great.”
“Your folks too? Least we could do. ”
Moms crochet by candle light,
dads play cards and guzzle beer.
You and I with bed in here
writing poems day and night.
(c) Lawrencealot – July 24, 2012
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Written in footless trochaic tetrameter.

Roundel

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A Roundel is syllabic with 3 Stanzas, 9 lines of the same length, and two shorter refrain lines which must be identical to the beginning of the first line.

There is NO set line length but iambic tetrameter or pentameter is common.

Rhyme Scheme: abaB bab abaB, where B is the refrain after the third line and as the final line of the poem.             

The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line: it may be a half-line, and rhymes with the second line.

My Example

Form: Roundel

Summer Awe

Without a doubt you know I’m here
from canine breath I must let out,
that we’re connected souls is clear
Without a doubt.

Your wings move slowly near my snout
as though a greeting without fear.
I love how your kind flits about.

Your brilliant colors do endear;
you dance to flower’s summer shout.
We both hold freedom very dear
Without a doubt.

© Lawrencealot – April 14, 2013

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