The Doha is a Hindi stanzaic form employing a rhyming couplet with long syllabic lines.The Doha is also used in Urdu verse. This form steps away from the Hindi tradition of romantic verse and is often written as didactic or used in longer narrative verse.
The Doha is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of couplets.
• syllabic, each line is made up of 24 syllables and is paused by caesura at the end of the 13th syllable, making the line two phrases of 13 and 11 syllables. The couplet can be arranged as a quatrain breaking the line at the caesura.
• commonly used for proverbs and/or for longer narratives or didactic poetry.
Vanquished in the Night by Judi Van Gorder
The starless night drops down into the silent forest,
———– small creatures scurry to secure safe haven.
Peerless predators with eyes accustom to the dark,
———— stalk their weaker prey with guile until craven.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1216
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.
My example
Commercial Consternation (Doha)
“I want that Daddy”, yells the child, at the TV screen.
After every segment, comes another ad!
With money short, it’s known that the child will do without.
The marketing must work, but it makes me mad.
© Lawrencealot – December 3, 2014
A visual template
Doha
Tagged Hindi, isosyllabic 24, rhymed couplet, Van Gorder. Bookmark the permalink.