Triple Stance

The form was created by Lisa La Grange, writing on Allpoetry.com.

The Triple Stance is:

  • Stanzaic: Consisting of any number of sestets
  • Metered: Each stanza consisting of 4 lines of iambic dimeter, and 2 line of iambic trimeter.
  • Rhyme Pattern: abcabc, where the a-rhymes are feminine.

My Example

Form: Triple Stance

What Knees

My sister fretting
about her knees –
“They’re knobby, don’t you think?”
“What I am betting’s
that no one sees
them; have another drink.”

“So stop your loathing
cus I’ll make book
one thing is crystal clear,
If you’ve no clothing
they’ll never look
below your thighs my dear.”

© Lawrencealot – July 6, 2015

Visual Template

Swinburne Cross-Rhyme Octave

This form is derived from the poem Rococo (and another I forget) by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The form is: Stanzaic, consisting of Octaves
Syllabic, each quatrain consisting of 7/6/7/6 syllables
Metric: Iambic trimeter, with odd numbered lines being feminine rhymed.
Rhymed: ababcdcd or abababab.

My example
I Went Topless
I Went Topless
Then boldness was discovered, 
bikini’s came to be! 
More skin became uncovered 
by girls with spirits free. 
Our stream was well secluded 
and stood upon our farm, 
and thus the girls concluded 
we’d play there without harm. 
And younger than all others 
I had no breasts to hide 
But Jane had tits like mother’s 
and seemed most satisfied. 
While Sally looked most slender 
and tied her top on tight 
the buxom would engender 
in males a keen delight. 
We frolicked flaunting boldness 
where we were all alone, 
enjoyed the water’s coldness 
enjoyed what flesh was shown. 
I saw more than intended – 
that filled my mind with joy, 
for of all who attended 
I was the only boy. 
© Lawrencealot – May 3, 2014
Visual Template
Swinburne Cross-Rhyme Octave

Ae Freslighe poetry form

Ae Freslighe
An Irish form that dates back to at least the time of Saint Patrick, Ae Freslighe is a quatrain of seven syllables per line, and tells a story within no more than four stanzas. Properly, it rhymes abab cdcd efef etc. All rhymes are feminine rhymes, odd line rhymes ending with words of three syllables and even lines ending with words of two syllables. Ideally, the last word should be the same as the first, although some examples of only the last syllable same are extant. Alternately, when writing more than one stanza, the last line may repeat the first, which would alter the last stanza’s rhyme scheme to eaea.
Please note the syllable count shows that odd lines end in three syllables, even lines in two.
xxxx(xxa) xxxxx(xb) xxxx(xxa) xxxxx(xb)

Pasted from <http://the.a.b.c.of.poetry.styles.patthepoet.com/index.html>

My example

machu-picchu-late-afternoon

Macho Picchu (Ae Freslighe)

Treasures are worth defending;
(it’s best if they’re kept hidden.)
The artisans descending
had done what they were bidden.

The clouds closely hovering –
so full of rain were loaded;
men terraced a covering
that still is not outmoded.

Invaders were defacing
by crude and ugly measures
just taking, not replacing
Thank God they missed these treasures.

© Lawrencealot – October 3, 2014

Visual Template

Ae Freslighe

Frieze

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 Frieze is a verse form that appears to be an exercise in feminine rhyme. Attributed to Olivia Freeman.

The Frieze is:
○ a poem in 9 lines.
○ metered, iambic trimeter.
○ composed with L2, L4, and L8 with feminine ending.
○ rhymed, rhyme scheme abcbacabc.

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

Snowy Evening Stop  (Frieze)

I waited with my horse –
enjoyed the snowflakes falling;
he gave his bells a shake –
he wondered why the stalling.
The silent night’s sheer force
held every nerve awake,
and spirit too, of course.
Yet warmth of home was calling,
perhaps with chocolate cake.

© Lawrencealot – September 12, 2014

Visual Template

Frieze

The de la Mare

The de la Mare is a verse form patterned after Fare Well by English poet, Walter De La Mare (1873-1956). De La Mare is better known for his poem The Listeners.
The de la Mare is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of octaves made up of 2 quatrains.
○ metered, quatrains of 3 tetrameter lines followed by a dimeter line.
○ rhymed, xaxaxbxb xcxcxdxd etc. x being unrhymed.
○ composed with alternating feminine and masculine end words, only the masculine end words are rhymed.

Fare Well by Walter de la Mare
When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work creating the fine PoetryMagnumOpen resource.
My example poem
Tommy Teased Me (The de la Mare)
Tommy Teased Me
Tommy teased me to distraction
told me I was “just a girl”.
N’er-the-less he told all strangers-
I was his pearl.
Tommy taught me worms aren’t icky,
showed me how to fly a kite.
I most miss him in the daytime
Mom cries at night.
How I hope that heaven’s happy,
Daddy says that’s where he went.
Now there is a hole beside me
since his ascent.
Pictures on the fireplace mantle
Tell the tales of trips we shared
Mostly I’ll miss Tommy’s teasing
because he cared.
© Lawrencealot – June 11,2014
Visual Template
The de la Mare

The O'Shaughnessy

• 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

The Dowson

• The Dowson is patterned after the poem They Are Not Long, the Weeping and the Laughing by English poet Ernest Dowson (1867-1900). It is this poem that coined the phrase, “the days of wine and roses.” Dowson died at the age of 32 a direct result of his alcoholism.

The Dowson is:
○ stanzaic, 2 quatrains.
○ metered, L1-L3 pentameter, L2 trimeter, L4 dimeter.
○ rhymed abab cdcd, L1-L3 of each stanza ends in feminine rhyme and L2-L4 is masculine rhyme.
They Are Not Long, The Weeping and the Laughing by Ernest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
Within a dream.
Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on the fine PMO resource.
*Note: Although is it not set forth above, I noticed that his poem has each line 2 beginning with a trochee, thus I formed my template below with that construct.
My example poem
Make Time Race (The Dowson)
Though time decays most everything it touches
we can and should have fun.
Though mountains crumble finally in time’s clutches,
We’re not yet done!
The wine and roses really matter, mister.
Life is, it seems, too short.
The thrill, the heat, the trembling when you kissed her.
Enjoy! Cavort!
© Larencealot – June 27, 2014
Visual template
The Dowson

The Swinburne

      • The Swinburne is a stanzaic form patterned after Before the Mirror by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909).The Swinburne is:
        • stanzaic, written in any number of septets.
        • metric, L1,L3,L5, & L6 are trimeter, L2 & L4 are dimeter, and L7 is pentameter.
        • rhymed ababccb dedeffe etc, L1 & L3 have feminine or falling rhyme.
This named form was documented by Judi Van Gorder, on her most wonderful resource site: Poetry Manum Opus, in a section about poetry form named after English poets.
Note: In addition to the specifications above, it is also required that the sixth syllable in Line 7 rhyme with lines 5 and 6.

Before the Mirror
I.
WHITE ROSE in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?
Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.
II.
“Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.
“She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.
“I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.”
III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.
There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.
Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky.

Algernon Charles Swinburne
Example poem
Caretaker      (The Swinburne)
When forced to go and going
with all due haste,
you leave already knowing
there must be waste.
I never, as a boy
expected old man’s joy
at seeing an old toy I had misplaced.
The things you leave behind you
are not all done.
They’re simply tasks assigned to
another one.
When your life takes a turn
the habits you adjourn
may tickle Time who spurns a lack of fun.
© Lawrencealot – May 8, 2014

Deibhidhe

Deibhidhe
The deibhidhe is an Irish form. In English it is more often spelt deibide, but you still have to pronounce it jayvee. (The Irish language uses a lot of unlikely-looking clusters of consonants, and most of them seem to be either pronounced as “v” or not pronounced at all. Exercise: pronounce the name of the poet Medbh McGuckian.) 
Here’s a deibhidhe about the time I spent working in the oil industry:
No, Watercolour…
Of a subject dire I sing:
Reservoir Engineering
I could never understand –
A queer and quaggy quicksand!
I was sent away to learn
About it in climes northern,
But while at Herriot-Watt
My zeal did not run riot.
All the years I worked in oil,
My conscience was in turmoil.
I floundered through the fog
Like a bogged-down wan warthog.
My colleagues would make a fuss.
Those strata – were they porous?
It bothered me not a whit
How the drill bit grey granite.
The mysteries of the rock
Made me feel like a pillock.
Underground movements of gas
Alas, my mind can’t compass.
I don’t work there any more,
Redundancy my saviour.
Not a tragedy at all –
A small but welcome windfall!
There was a TV advert for an airline some years ago which featured the following exchange between two passengers on a flight to Aberdeen. Large outgoing American: “D’you work in oil?” Weedy-looking bespectacled Brit: “No, watercolour.” Hence the title. Herriot-Watt University is situated near Edinburgh and offers week-long courses on such arcane subjects as Reservoir Engineering, cleverly sugaring the pill by making them coincide with the Edinburgh Festival.
As for the form, each stanza has 4 lines of 7 syllables each, rhyming aabb, and both of these rhymes are deibide rhymes i.e. in the first line of each rhyming pair, the rhyming syllable is stressed, and in the second it is unstressed.
The form also demands an aicill rhyme between lines 3 and 4 i.e. the word at the end of line 3 rhymes with a word somewhere in the middle of line 4 (as whit/bit, gas/alas above). 
Finally, there must be alliteration between the last word of each stanza and the preceding stressed word (as quaggy quicksand, welcome windfall above).
This amounts to a lot of constraints for the fourth line to satisfy in the space of only 7 syllables. I found this form a tough one, except when writing the last stanza. Perhaps I was getting into the swing of it by then.
Thanks to Bob Newman for his wonderful Volecentral resource site.
Specifications restated:
Isosyllabic: 7/7/7/7
Rhymed: aabb
My example poem
Night Nymph     (Deibhidhe)
I was mesmerized, entranced
when she stood in the entrance.
Just one glance at her’d confer
instantly a pure pleasure
The nymph caused my heart to sing
and set my nerves to dancing
I viewed her in near undress
and dreamed she’d be my mistress.
But it was not meant to be,
this maiden oh so pretty.
for she was gone with the sun
a nighttime visit vision.
© Lawrencealot – April 10, 2014
Visual Template

Trochadiddle

This form started as a nonce form written by
Michael Fantina, aka Eusebius of Alllpoetry for his poem
“Magics”
Michael is much too busy writing beautiful and entertaining poetry to be bothered with the practice of giving names to forms which he writes on the fly, often consciously or subconsciously influenced by Algernon Swinburne, from whom he thinks he might have borrowed this pattern.  Definitely he was influenced to occasionally merge two un-stressed syllables, or to add an occasional syllable deviating from a strict syllabic or accentual pattern where his creativity and mind’s ears says that it works.
Neither was Swinburne the only great to invoke this technique.  In fact is it is hard to find truly creative and expressive poets where this technique has not sometime found deployment.
I have been just learning to conform to form and pattern, and like anyone just learning, have always felt safer abiding strictly to the defined pattern of a form.
I define and name each new form that I see (and/or like in any manner at all) so that we may speak of it by name and all be speaking of the same animal when we give it a try.
My specifications:
This is a stanzaic poem, consisting of one or more sestets.
It is syllabic, each stanza being 10/10/6/5 syllables.
Rhymes: aabcbc, where the b-rhymes are feminine.
Metered subject to the following pattern:
DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da
da DUM da da DUM
Note: if  you write this same form beginning each of the long lines with a Spondee as did Gary Kent Spain, writing as venicebard on Allpoetry, you will have written a Spondiddle.
Original poem Magics by Eusebius
Gather the stars and the moon for a spell,
With holly and sard and an umber conch shell.
And sing to the sound of
A bell left unrung.
With a pestle ground love
Till your song is re-sung.
Call on a harlot who’s pale as the moon,
Call on her nightly, but call on her soon.
And while she is weeping,
Take one crystal tear,
And when she is sleeping
One jewel from her ear.
Gather them there near your hearth at the dawn,
Drench them with dew from the grass on the lawn,
And while it is brewing
Like some frothing sea,
You’ll soon then be wooing,
But me, only me!
© February 2014
You will see that the above poem, and the one illustrated by the visual template below, stray 0ccasionally from the specified pattern.
That is what I refer to a creative diddling around, and led me to the name of this form.
This represents a step forward in my poetic growth, as my rigidity is lessened for I realize now that poets always have this license, but can never take a knock for exercising it in competition with this form.
My example poem:
Sweet Apparition     (Trochadiddle)
Watched as the moon and the clouds seem to pose
with stars bunched so closely the Milky Way glows,
with night now becoming
invitingly cool
I heard something coming
up out of the pool.
She’s an apparition it seems at first glance
formed with perfection and sure to entrance.
Her eyes are green emeralds
but tinted with blue
her voice sweetly heralds
sweet pleasure, I knew.
“Love me tonight while we’re here all alone,
I cannot stay for this form is on loan.”
I did I’m believing,
I slaked both our thirst
and she’s not now grieving-
relieved of her curse.
© Lawrencealot – February 26, 2014
I call this a Trochadiddle
Long lines begin with a trochee and end with an iamb.
You will note that in line 2, I added an unstressed
Syllable before beginning the pattern – and also added an extra unstressed syllable mid-line,
 as I did elsewhere.  This is the diddling!
So the stressed syllables become
STARS, CLOSE, MILK, GLOWS, as though “with” were on line1.
Visual Template