Tag Archives: hexasyllabic

Essence

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Stanzaic, any number of couplets
Isosyllabic, Hexasyllabic lines
Rhyme Pattern: xbxcxa xbacxa, where b and c are interlaced rhyme, AND c is optional.
      Note: The b and c rhymes can be found on any syllables.
  • Essence is a rhyming hexasyllabic couplet with internal rhyme with a twist. Normally in English prosody “internal rhyme” refers to a word within the line rhyming with the end word of that line or the end word of the previous line. However in this verse form internal rhyme refers to words from somewhere within the line rhyming internally within the next line, it could be 1 or 2 rhymes. (This could be tricky in only 6 short syllables.) Found at ShadowPoetry.com and attributed to Emily Romano, published in P.O.E.T. magazine in 1981.
    The essence is:

    • stanzaic, written in any number of couplets.
    • syllabic, hexasyllabic lines.
    • end rhymed as well as interlaced rhyme. x b x x c a b x c x x a The b and c interlaced rhymes may be placed in any position within the lines, the c rhyme is optional.
Two short lines with end rhyme
sort within, tend to time.
——Judi Van Gorder
 
 
My great thanks to Judi of PMO, for the above.
II made one change in the description.  Instead of referring to the b and c rhymes as internal rhyme, I called them interlaced rhyme.
Rhyming a word in the middle of one line with a word in the middle of another is called interlaced rhyme.
Here, thanks to Bob Newman of Volecentral, is the most definitive list of rhyme types I have ever encountered.   http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/rhyme.htmNote: I would also disagree with the indicated rhyming convention, but guess I will not insist it be x a x b x c  since the previously indicated pattern bestows the a-rhyme upon the end-rhyme position.
Isosyllabic: 6/6/6/6/6/6
Rhymed (bca)(bca) (Interlaced rhyme)
My  Example Poem
Bye Bye,  Bad Boy      (Essence)
Next time you reel me in
to climb and feel and sin,
I plan to take to bed
a man to slake instead.
© Lawrencealot – Thanksgiving day 2013
Visual Template
Essence

Double Dactyl

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A dactyl is a term used in formal English poetry to describe a trisyllablic metrical foot made up of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones. Matador, realize, cereal and limerick as well as the word poetry itself are examples of words that are themselves dactyls. A double dactyl can therefore simply mean two consecutive dactyls.
A double dactyl is also a verse form, also known as “higgledy piggledy”[citation needed], purportedly[1] invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal in 1961, but having a history as a parlor word game earlier in the century. Like a limerick, it has a rigid structure and is usually humorous, but the double dactyl is considerably more rigid and difficult to write. There must be two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line.
The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is the subject of the poem, a proper noun (marked in these examples with a single asterisk, *, or where not exactly a proper name with a parenthesized asterisk (*)). Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. There is also a requirement for at least one line of the second stanza to be entirely one double dactyl word, for example “va-le-dic-tor-i-an” (marked with two asterisks, **). Some purists still follow Hecht and Pascal’s original rule that no single six-syllable word, once used in a double dactyl, should ever be knowingly used again.[1]
A self-referential example by Roger L. Robison:
Long-short-short, long-short-short
Dactyls in dimeter,(*)
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically**
Challenges poets who
Don’t have the time.  (Source: Wikipedia)
Example Poem
Dedicated to Ms Moore (Double Dactly)
Nickitty Pickity
Octagenarian
normally worrisome
abstinent gent.
Enlivened due to a
fan-fuckingtastical
Sexy Librarian’s
erotic bent.
(c) Lawrencealot – May 22, 2012
Author’s Note:
The 6th line above is an invented portmanteau created by inserting the common crude cultural expletive “fucking” inside of the existing word “fantastical”.
Visual Template
8 lines, rhyming xxxaxxxa

McWhirtle

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A McWhirtle is a light verse form similar to a double dactyl, invented in 1989 by American poet Bruce Newling. McWhirtles share essentially the same form as double dactyls, but without the strict requirements, making them easier to write. Specifically:
• McWhirtles do not require a nonsense phrase (e.g., “Higgledy piggledy”) on the first line.
• There is no requirement for a double-dactylic word in the second stanza.
• There is an extra unstressed syllable added to the beginning of the first line of each stanza.
• Although the meter is the same as in a double-dactyl, syllables may move from the end of one line to the beginning of the next for readability.
The looser form allows poets additional freedom to include additional rhymes and other stylistic devices.
The form is named after the fictional protagonist in an early example by Newling, included with his original written description of the form, dated August 12, 1989; but his first McWhirtle, in which his friend “Skip” Ungar is the protagonist and which also appeared with his original description, was:
The Piano Player
I read in the papers
That Harry F. Ungar
Performs in a night spot
Near soigne Scotch Plains,
Caressing the keyboard
While affluent yuppies
Are eating and drinking
Their capital gains.
The first published description of the McWhirtle, with examples, was in E.O. Parrott, ed., How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry, London: Viking, 1990, pp. 197-200; and the verse form was also described in Anne H. Soukhanov, Word Watch – The Stories Behind the Words of Our Lives, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995, pp. 388-89.
An example by American poet Kenn Nesbitt:
Fernando the Fearless
We’re truly in awe of
Fernando the Fearless
who needed no net
for the flying trapeze.
Alas, what a shame
it’s surprisingly difficult
catching a bar
in the midst of a sneeze.
Pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McWhirtle>
 
Sample poem
Wake-Up, It’s Not Suzie
When waking up drunken
Sometimes I have thunken
how far I have sunken
in shame? Who’s the dame
in this bed?  If I open
my eyes and then hope I
have not, that I’m coping
with dreams, is that lame?
(c) Lawrencealot – July 8, 201
Visual Example
Note: only the 4th and 8th line rhyme are required.