Tag Archives: 8 lines or multiple

Cueca Chilena

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There seems to be not much around about this form, which I discovered many moons ago and made a quick note of.  I will transcribe from my notes as I’ve found not one jot about it online.  Cueca is also the national dance of Chile, although sometimes it is accompanied by song.  My knowledge of Spanish doesn’t stretch to commenting on whether the National folk songs follow this form.  The only poets I know from Chile are Neruda – who if he wrote a Cueca I don’t know it –  and Nicanor Parra whose work is all about colloquial and informal arrangements so I can guarantee it isn’t a style for him.  Still the ‘yes’ in the fifth line kind of makes it feel colloquial to me.  When I’ve used this form I’ve written it quite relaxed.  I enjoy the short lines, the unconventional rhythm.

So, the poem my notes allude to is created thus: 8 lines long, with multiple stanzas (verses).  the fifth line is a repeat of the fourth line with the addition of the word ‘yes’ at the beginning.   It’s influenced by the Spanish Seguidilla poem which will come at some stage in the project.  The rhyme goes A-B-C-B-B-D-E-D where each letter represents a certain rhyming sound at the end of a line, and the repeated letter shows where the next rhyme comes.

Remember you can continue for as many stanzas as you please.

Example

I spent New Year’s Eve with singing boys
Three nights before we parted
Shouting rebel songs to Belfast’s streets
And you were so light hearted
yes, and you were so light hearted –
Whilst I felt terribly abandoned
In someone’s kitchen making tea
As the New-Years sky slowly brightened.

Pasted from https://poetryform.wordpress.com/ with thanks.

Specifications restated (as deduced.)
The Cueca Chilena is:
Origin: Chile, known primarily as a dance.
Stanzaic, consisting of any number of 8 line stanzas.
Syllabic: 9/7/9/7/8/9/9/9
Rhymed: Rhyme pattern: abcBBded
Refrained: The 4th line, which should be end stopped is repeated in line 5.
Formulaic: The word, “yes” is inserted as the first word in line 5.

My Example
(Form: Cueca Chilena)
The Girl in the Cape

The Girl in the Cape

As symbol of love – how bright our moon,
yet that’s from reflected light.
More like the sun, you are radiant —
from within springs your delight.
Yes, from within springs your delight.
No cosmetics need you ever wear.
Your natural light would amplify
the beauty of flowers in your hair.

© Lawrencealot – January 21, 2015

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Cueca Chilena

Tigerjade

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Tigerjade

Predictions

3a We’ll go on?
3a Soon begun
12b a new Mayan calender called B’aktun 14
12b hidden in Guatemala, more future unseen
12c in Xuitun excavation-seven thousand years
12c 2.5 million days to quell some folks fears.
3d End of fuss?
3d Still end us?
3e But not all
3e you recall
12f relied on just Mayan calendar prophesy
12f Dire times for our evil crimes some others see–
12g Nostradamus, Bible, Native Americans.
12g Angry Earth disasters causing all short life spans
3h in some way
3h on some day.

Tigerjade
Created by Jacqueline Sturge
1. Any number of octaves or 8-line stanzas
2. Syllable Count: 3-3-12-12-12-12-3-3
3. Rhymed: a-a-b-b-c-c-d-d. Continue e-e-f-f-g-g-h-h etc

© 2012 Linda Varsell Smith “Word-Playful” www.RainbowCommunications.com

• The Tigerjade is an invented stanzaic form introduced by Jacqueline Sturge. In researching the name, I found Tiger Jade the name of a freighter in the Bengal Tiger line. The name could also refer to jewelry, a jade tiger.

The Tigerjade is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of octaves.
○ syllabic, 3-3-12-12-12-12-3-3 syllables per line.
○ rhymed, aabbccdd eeffgghh etc.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/2192-invented-forms-from-poetry-styles/

My Example

Choose a Treat

Choose a Treat (Tigerjade)

Please abide;
step inside.
The treats you offer are enticing, yummy, yet
your hands are full of goodies and your little pet.
Your fingernails are lovely, but that pot is black;
please set it down then come inside and scratch my back.
When you’re done
we’ll have fun.

Costume’s bold!
Are you cold?
I’ll warm you up in ways that you might contemplate,
and effortlessly, I think you’ll reciprocate.
I’ll scratch your back as well as anywhere you itch.
This night is Halloween – you know you can bewitch.
Please come in.
Let’s begin.

© Lawrencealot – October 28, 2014

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Tigerjade

Ripple Echo

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Pathways for the Poet by Viola Berg (1977) is a book for and by educators. Classic poetic forms as well as many invented forms which appear to have been invented as teaching tools or exercizes for use in workshops or classrooms are included. Some of these invented forms I have found in use in internet poetry communities, a testament to their staying power. On this page I include the metric invented forms found there in which appear to be exclusive to the community of educators from whom Ms. Berg drew her support. I have yet to find these in any other source. …. Whether classroom exercise or sharpening your skill as a writer, some of these forms can be fun to play with.

• The Ripple Echo is an invented stanzaic form that “begins and ends its stanzas with rhyming ripple and echo couplets”. I am not quite what that means but it sounds fun. What I am sure of is, L2 and L8 of each octave are anapestic mono meter rhyming with the previous line. This form was introduced by L. Ensley Hutton.

The Ripple Echo is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of octaves, made up of 4 rhymed couplets.
○ metric, L1,L3,L4,L5,L6,L7 are catalectic trochaic tetrameter, L2 & L8 are anapestic monometer.
○ rhymed, rhyme scheme aabbccdd.
○ L2 & L8 are indented.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1199#dionol
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

Self-actualization

Self-actualization (Ripple Echo)

You have made it to the top.
       Now don’t stop.
Much more magic lives in you
more remains for you to do.
You have won, not just by might.
Actually, you’ve done things right.
Standing tall, you’re now allowed
        to be proud.

© Lawrencealot – September 21, 2014

Picture Credit” Google Images, “Congratulations”

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Ripple Echo

The Phillimore

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The Phillimore is a stanzaic form that moves from dimeter to pentameter and back again. It is named for John Swinnerton Phillimore (1873-1926) and patterned after his poem In a Meadow.

The Phillimore is:

  • stanzaic written in any number of octaves. (original poem has 6 octaves)
  • metered, L1, L4,L6 and L8 are dimeter, L2,L3,L5, and L7 are pentameter.
  • rhymed, aabbccdd.
    In a Meadow by John Swinnerton Phillimore

THIS is the place
Where far from the unholy populace
The daughter of Philosophy and Sleep
Her court doth keep,
Sweet Contemplation. To her service bound
Hover around
The little amiable summer airs,
Her courtiers.
The deep black soil
Makes mute her palace-floors with thick trefoil;
The grasses sagely nodding overhead
Curtain her bed;
And lest the feet of strangers overpass
Her walls of grass,
Gravely a little river goes his rounds
To beat the bounds.
—No bustling flood
To make a tumult in her neighbourhood,
But such a stream as knows to go and come
Discreetly dumb.
Therein are chambers tapestried with weeds
And screen’d with reeds;
For roof the waterlily-leaves serene
Spread tiles of green.
The sun’s large eye
Falls soberly upon me where I lie;
For delicate webs of immaterial haze
Refine his rays.
The air is full of music none knows what,
Or half-forgot;
The living echo of dead voices fills
The unseen hills.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on the fine PoetryMagnumOpus resource.
My example poem
With Love Possessed (The Pillimore)
I won’t repent.
I love your touch, your hair, your smile, your scent.
Anticipation takes my breath away
throughout the day.
A gesture made, a turning of your head,
with nothing said
provokes desire and happiness in me
for all to see!
If you ignite
desire by accident it’s quite alright
for fates have so aligned so both that lust
is right and just.
When I’m away, I agonize my dear,
that you’re not here.
Dispelled is every other form of strife
my darling wife.
© Lawrencealot – June 10, 2014
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The Phillimore

The O'Shaughnessy

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• The O’Shaughnessy

is a verse form patterned after a single stanza in “Ode” by Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881).

The O’Shaughnessy is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of octaves.
○ metered, sprung rhythm, alternating trimeter and tetrameter lines. The odd number lines are trimeter and the even number lines are tetrameter.
○ rhymed, rhyme scheme abababab. The odd numbered lines are feminine rhyme and the even numbered lines are masculine rhyme.

Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy
WE are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668
My thanks to Judi Van Gorden for creating the fine resource at PMO.
Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables.[1] The British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins claimed to have discovered this previously unnamed poetic rhythm in the natural patterns ofEnglish in folk songs, spoken poetry, Shakespeare, Milton, et al. He used diacritical marks on syllables to indicate which should be drawn out (acute e.g. á ) and which uttered quickly (grave, e.g., è).
Some critics believe he merely coined a name for poems with mixed, irregular feet, like free verse. However, while sprung rhythm allows for an indeterminate number of syllables to a foot, Hopkins was very careful to keep the number of feet he had per line consistent across each individual work, a trait that free verse does not share. Sprung rhythm may be classed as a form of accentual verse, due to its being stress-timed, rather than syllable-timed,[2] and while sprung rhythm did not become a popular literary form, Hopkins’s advocacy did assist in a revival of accentual verse more generally.[3]
Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprung_rhythm>
For a thoroughly technical treatise on Sprung Rhythm see:
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Papers/HayesAndMooreCantwell2011GerardManleyHopkins.pdf
Note: The Ode presented above does NOT comply with the specifications presented, in that the second stanza has a rhyme pattern of  a a b b a b a b.
My example poem:
In Transit

In Transit (The O’Shaughnessy)

She made my ride to work a pleasure
Although she dressed in casual clothes
She’d beat the rest by any measure.
When first I thought to speak I froze.
But transit-time provided leisure
and we both used it I suppose
to stoke romance we’ll always treasure
for on this night I shall propose.

(c) Lawrencealot = July 6, 2014

Long Octave

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Long Octave
Type:
Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:
An octave of iambic tetrameter with rhyme scheme abcbabcb.
Schematic:
Line rhythm: xX xX xX xX
Rhyme scheme: abcbabcb
Rhythm/Stanza Length:
8
See Also:
Status:
Incomplete
My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.
Example poem
Recruiting      (Long Octave)
When Maude and I were at the park
just chatting calmly on a bench,
two half-dressed trollops happened by
(I think perhaps that they were French),
it wasn’t close to getting dark.
They asked, “We’ve many thirsts to quench.
and one’s a friendly older guy;
would you take care of him by chance?”
© Lawrencealot – April 21, 2014
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Pentibrach

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It is so named because of the unique metric foot proposed by its creator Glenn Meisenheimer, known on Allpoetry as gmcookie.
He proposed a five syllable metric foot with only the center syllable being accented.  Because of its resemblance to an amphibrach with an unaccented syllable affixed to each end, I named this the pentibrach.   If scholars find a precedent we will of course bow to an established usage.
The poem is stanzaic, consisting of at least two quatrains.
It is syllabic: 10/9/10/7
It uses external rhyme, rhyming the last line of each stanza. (xxxa)
I realize there are alternative options to provide a metric schema, but I shall use the authors own presentation, and define here the metric feet to be used:
The pentibrach:             da da DUM da da
The secundus paeon:    da DUM da da
The iamb:                        da DUM
Each stanza is formed thus:
L1 & L3      two pentibrach feet
L2               a pentibrach followed by a secundus paeon
L4               a pentibrach followed by an iamb
The author’s original poem.
Kandahar
As the shadows fall and the daylight fades
And the owl flirts with the whippoorwill,
In that twilight time when the nightingale
Sings his love songs to the stars,
You will find me here in the umbral dark
As I wend through trees and monuments,
In the gloaming dusk when the sunlight fades
And when Jupiter joins Mars.
It is only then, from this cursed ground,
There is strength in my soliloquy,
As I raise my voice on the evening breeze
And I sing my ghost-thin bars.
It’s an ancient tune yet a timely one
Of a sailor washed ashore near here
Who was buried deep in this Christian soil
Far away from Kandahar.
My Attempt at one:
Entranced     (Pentibrach)
As she stretched her arms to the morning’s dim
and her curvature delighted me
 I assumed that I’m just a blessed guy
who was honored here by chance.
The is nothing that would predict that I
should be met on earth by goddesses
or be catered to by the likes of her.
Don’t disturb me from this trance.
© Lawrencealot – February 15, 2014
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Swinburne Octain

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This is a refrain poem, the form was one of many un-named forms invented by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909).

 I  have interpreted the specifications from looking at the work of one of Swinburne’s most dedicated students, AP’s own Eusebius.

 

There are at least TWO significant versions of an octain he created.  This first, presented here is  written in iambic meter, the second  written in trochaic.  The is the first:

 

Rhyming pattern: ABccabAB, where the capital letter indicate verbatim repetition of a line.

The “b” rhymes are all iambic trimeter,  all other lines  are feminine rhymes utilizing footless (or catalectic) iambic tetrameter.

Syllabic:  7/6/7/7/7/6/7/6

 

The first stanza, is repeated as the final stanza of the poem, thus it seems sensible that the minimum poem length should be at least four stanzas.

 

 

The Trochaic version is written with the Rhyming pattern: ababcccb

Syllabic: 9/8/9/8/9/9/9/8

 

The accent is as two trochee feet, an amphibrach and a trochee with all “b” rhymes being catalectic.

Example Poem

 The Tart (Swinburne Octain)

This tart so thin, bewitching,
with beauty, fay and pale.
Her tattoos all parading,
Her ebon curls cascading,
until I am just itching
to see her all in Braille.
This tart so thin, bewitching,
with beauty, fay and pale.

She seems an apparition
both siren myth and tramp,
who sells her pleasures cheaply
to those who want her deeply.
I feel I must audition
to win time with this vamp.
She seems an apparition
both siren myth and tramp,

Her long smooth legs inviting
all who may simply glance.
Though men might once demean her
they’ll dare not come between her
and one she is inviting.
Each man would like his chance.
Her long smooth legs inviting
all who may simply glance.

To me she whispered lightly,
“I’ll show you realms of love.”
Her word were most insightful
Her movements were delightful
I longed to have her nightly
beneath the moon above.
To me she whispered lightly,
“I’ll show you realms of love.”

This tart so thin, bewitching,
with beauty, fay and pale.
Her tattoos all parading,
Her ebon curls cascading,
until I am just itching
to see her all in Braille.
This tart so thin, bewitching,
with beauty, fay and pale. 

© Lawrencealot – June 17, 2013

 

 

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Double Swap Octet

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This form was invented by D.D.Michaels writing at Allpoetry.com.
  1. Begin with any octet with any rhyme scheme and meter. 
  2. Break lines 1 and 4 into segments which can be broken in concert with that rhyme scheme.
  3. Swap Line 1 to Line eight, after reversing those aforementioned sections
  4. Swap Line 4 to Line seven in the same manner.
Example Poem
Written in iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme: ababcdcd, 
where refrain words represent half a line.
Let’s Write a Double Swap Octet
A double swap octet let us now pen.
I built the first with one swap, not too bright.
So I am back right now to try again.
It helps if your instructor  gets it right.
Pen line four right after one, prevent yelps
from finding it won’t rhyme the way it’s set.
If your instructor gets it right it helps.
Let us now pen a double swap octet.
By just lines one and four,  all rhymes are set.
I’ve set those words in red to ring like chimes.
Now you write wonderfully, without regret.
At the end or at the break, place the rhymes.
Remember line sequence for heaven’s sake.
Then unlike me, you won’t louse up the score.
Place the rhymes at the end, or at the break.
All rhymes are set by just lines one and four.
© Lawrencealot  –  May 3, 2012
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Luc Bat

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The luc bat is a Vietnamese form of poetry.
It means simply “six eight” due to its pattern of syllables per line: 6,8,6,8,6,8, etc. There is no set length to the luc bat, so it can be as long or as short as you’d like.
But what really makes this form interesting is the rhyming structure, which sounds a little complicated but is easy to grasp in practice.
The sixth syllable of every eight-syllable line rhymes with the last syllable of the six-syllable line before it, which in turn rhymes with the eighth syllable of the eight-syllable line before it. When the end of the poem is reached, the last line jumps back and rhymes with the first. In other words, the syllables go like this:
* * * * * a
* * * * * a * b
* * * * * b
* * * * * b * c
* * * * * c
* * * * * c * d
* * * * * d
* * * * * d * a
…although of course the poem can be as long as you wish.
Remember that it is always the final line of the poem which
ends in the “a” rhyme, linking it back to the beginning
Example Poem
Farewell Denied
The ship I sailed and sank
those final years, was dank by then.
I tried to save her when
all hope seemed lost.  My men put out
in boats, and with a shout
“Farewell”, I set about to save
that ship in a nearby cave.
I was not really brave; just done.
I thought it might be one
small chance for grounding run in firth.
Slight chance to find some berth
I tried for what it’s worth, but failed.
Thru all the years I sailed,
and all the sirens hailed with cheer
I never thought I hear
one close until my dear, you found
me sinking soon to drown.
“I’d love for you to down here stay
and with this sprite now play,
but death to you that way I’ll stop.”
You brought me to the top.
A mortal life you swap to free
a mortal from the sea
although you wanted me to stay
I clung to life that day,
but thoughts of you held sway since then.
I’ll leave the world of men
and dive in where back then, I sank.
© Lawrencealot – August, 2012
Author just noted on review that this poem does
not comply to specifications and will be re-rewritten.
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