Tengahan Wukir

Javanese poetry was originally meant to be sung for an audience, not read in private.

• Tengahan Wukir meter is a form of Kidung (songs) that marries the stanza length with the meter used. They were written for all occasions up until the mid 1500s.

The Tengahan Wukir is:
○ stanzaic, can be written in any number of 9 line stanzas.
○ syllabic, 10-6-8-7-8-8-8-8-8 syllables per line.
○ composed in a pattern of vowel sounds in the end syllable, not necessarily rhyme. Vowel sounds pattern, u-e-i-u-u-e-u-a-a.

Pasted from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

I could find NO EXAMPLE online, so I won’t try to resuscitate this form.

Virelai

• The Virelai, is a narrative, an expanded Lai and a member of the Lai family of forms. A poem of a single Virelai stanza is known as a Bergerette.

The Virelai is:
○ stanzaic, any number of nonets (9 line stanzas) may be written at the discretion of the poet. One nonet is called a Bergerette or a Lai when made up of 3 tercets.
○ syllabic, syllables per line 5-5-2-5-5-2-5-5-2.
○ rhymed, it carries a running rhyme from stanza to stanza. aabaabaab bbcbbcbbc ddcddcddc etc until the end, in which the long line rhyme of the first stanza is repeated as the short line rhyme of the last stanza, ffaffaffa.

○ Telling the Storm by Judi Van Gorder

It happened at night
it gave me a fright,
the slash!
I watched it ignite
like a flame in flight
its dash
like a fighting kite
waving fiery bright,
so brash.

The thunderous crash
made the fish-tank splash.
The room
shook after the flash,
I pulled back the sash.
The womb
of the storm, the clash
was done with panache,
Ka-boom!

When done, to resume
and dispel the gloom,
I write.
To tell with a plume
and bring forth the bloom,
a light.
In time to exhume,
a poem to groom
finite.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/686-lai-family-of-forms-lai-lai-nouveaukyriellebergerettevirelai/
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

 

My example

When Wally Wanders
When Wally Wanders (Virelai)

When Wally some way,
went walking away,
I snored.
I thought it okay
there’s little to stray
toward.
But to my dismay
without his display
I’m bored

He’s always deplored
the thought of a cord
attached.
Although I’d be floored
He would be adored
if snatched.
I’ll post a reward
to get him restored-
much scratch.

If he’s met his match
and he’s in the hatch
I may
just act with dispatch
to undo the latch
today.
As runt of the batch
he was a fine catch,
I’d say!

© Lawrencealot – August 30, 2014

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Virelai

Ronsardian Ode

Ronsardian Ode
The Ronsardian ode (named after Pierre de Ronsard 1524-1585) is the only kind of ode that specifies a particular rhyming scheme – ababccddc, with syllable counts of 10, 4, 10, 4, 10, 10, 4, 4, 8. 
In the present rather windy economic climate, I thought an owed might be appropriate.
Owed to the Bank
I rue the day when I picked up the phone
(Connected then)
And asked them to advance me a small loan.
Never again!
The moment the transaction was arranged,
The pattern of my entire life was changed.
More than I’d guessed,
The interest
Mounts up. I must have been deranged.
Eleven thousand pounds I owe, they say.
That’s quite a debt.
I swear I’ll pay it back to them one day,
But not just yet.
Meanwhile I need a place to lay my head,
A jug of wine perhaps, a loaf of bread.
Then there’s my wife…
For normal life
Can’t stop because I’m in the red.
I’ve hardly slept since this nightmare began.
I lie awake,
Find fatal flaws in every single plan
I try to make –
But last night all my ideas seemed to gel.
I’ll find another job; all will be well.
A banking post
Will pay the most.
Why’s that? It’s not too hard to tell.
Ah, life as a teller. It’s a tempting thought. I think there should probably be a fourth stanza, but as yet there isn’t. Sorry.
I bought a book of Ronsard’s selected poems, and it didn’t include a single Ronsardian ode. So some further research may be called for.
Thanks to Bob Newman for his wonderful Volecentral resource site.
Cowleyan Ode or Irregular Ode, Horatian OdeKeatsian or English OdeRonsardian Ode
Thematic Odes:Elegy, Obsequy, Threnody Ode
Elemental Ode
Genethliacum Ode
Encomium or Coronation Ode
Epithalamion or Epithalamium and Protholathiumis
Palinode Ode
Panegyric or Paean
Triumphal Ode
Occasional Verse

My example poem
Ode to a Creek (Ronsarian Ode)
The little creek was built to irrigate
so men could farm.
Thus, daily men would rise to raise some gate
when days were warm.
Those summer days the creek would draw the boys
away from practiced games and silly toys
to share the breeze
with brush and trees
that lined the creek, contained their noise.
The larger boys had tied a swinging rope
on which we played
and dropped to take our daily bath sans soap,
quite unafraid.
When swing and drop became at last mundane
up to that branch we’d boldly climb again
into two feet
it seemed so neat,
we bore our scratches with disdain.
One fall they warned we could not swim nor fish
White poison flowed
and fish preceded it; to live their wish.
Death was bestowed
on parasites and all the mossy growth.
But all the neighbor boys I knew were loath
to think them right
when deadly white
killed life and our short season both.
When winter came a fragile sheet of ice
made young boys bold
for they could walk across it once or twice
when it was cold.
They’d taunt the older boys and wouldn’t care
how fast were bigger kids who’d chase them there.
The small ones knew
just what to do;
The bigs fell through most anywhere.
I cannot tell now where that creek had been;
growth needs, I guess.
New roads exist that hadn’t been there then,
such is progress.
That creek’s as gone as are my boyhood years.
but still the memories of it endears.
It served its roles
and other goals
before it bowed and disappeared.
© Lawrencealot – April 15, 2014

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