Wreathed and Unwreathed Sestet

The following description is reposted with permission from The Poets Garret. My thanks for the fine body of work maintained on that site.

Wreathed and Unwreathed Sestets


Wreathed poetry is simply a natural blending of English poetry with the Celtic Welsh. Its creator George Herbert was born into a wealthy artistic family in Wales and later was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge and was unpublished until after his death. It is believed that his poem A Wreath was inspired by the Welsh form Englyn cryrch which uses an internal rhyme scheme with an external one and gives a couplet scheme of:

 

 

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

 

The red in the second line indicates that the internal rhyme can be anywhere in the first part of second line and can be a repeat word rather than a rhyme. that is the poets decision. There is no internal rhyme in the first line, It was later that poets saw the possibilities and created the sestet with a rhyme scheme of:

 

 

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

 

Here is an example of that form:

 

 

Not Nerd

 

A simple envelope is not hard

What is hard is finding words

Words are a problem to the bard

Because bards are never nerds

As for nerdish be on your guard

Yes guard against all lollard’s 

 

Anon

 

Unwreathed Poetry

 

Later poets realised that some Irish forms led with an internal form and from that was born Un-wreath poetry, simply the reverse of Wreath in that the first line starts with an internal rhyme with the second external and so on, there being no seventh line there is no external rhyme, giving this sestet a basic rhyme scheme of:

 

 

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a.

x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a.



My Example

Form: Wreathed Sestet

Hurry Earlier

“I think I’ve water on my brain –
all my hurry in vain to night.
And yet tonight with all this rain
I’ll miss the train though it’s in sight.
The lights shine brightly in the train.
Wasted time caused this pain and plight.”

© Lawrencealot – March 3, 2015

Visual Template

Note: although the template is for a poem of 8 syllables, length is up to the poet.

Wreathed and Unwreathed Octave

The following description is reposted with permission from The Poets Garret. My thanks to Ryter Roethicle.

Wreathed Octave

Wreathed poetry is simply a natural blending of English poetry with the Celtic Welsh. Its creator George Herbert was born into a wealthy artistic family in Wales and later was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge and was unpublished until after his death. It is believed that his poem A Wreath was inspired by the Welsh form Englyn cryrch which uses an internal rhyme scheme with an external one and gives a couplet scheme of:

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a.
x. a. x. x. x. x. x. b.

 

 

 

The red in the second line indicates that the internal rhyme can be anywhere in the first part of second line and can be a repeat word rather than a rhyme. that is the poets decision. There is no internal rhyme in the first line, It was later that poets saw the possibilities and created the octave with a rhyme scheme of:

 

x. x. x. x. x. x. x. a.
x. a. x. x. x. x.
 x. b.
x. b. x. x. x. x.
 x. a.
x. a. x. x. x. x.
 x. b.
x. b. x. x. x. x.
 x. c.
x. c. x. x. x. x.
 x. d.
x. d. x. x. x. x.
 x. c.
x. c. x. x. x. x.
 x. d.

 

 

 

Here is an example of that form:

 

Shrouded Thoughts

 

Must I wait one more day to speak to you
Tell you of my eternal love and desire to share.
Everything I dare you know I will pursue
In that pursuit, there is nothing I will not dare.
Knowing you care, certain of you wanting me
Especially of being betrayed in the recent past
Now that is past even more I need certainty
Are you my certainty and will our love last?

Ryter Roethicle

 

Un-wreathed Octave

Later poets realised that some Irish forms led with an internal form and from that was born Un-wreathed poetry, simply the reverse of Wreathed in that the first line starts with an internal rhyme with the second external and so on, there being no fifth line there is no external rhyme, giving it a basic rhyme scheme of:

x. b. x. x. x. x. x. a.
x. a. x. x. x. x.
 x. b.
x. b. x. x. x. x.
 x. a.
x. c. x. x. x. x.
 x. b.
x. d. x. x. x. x. x. c.
x. c. x. x. x. x.
 x. d.
x. d. x. x. x. x.
 x. c.
x. x. x. x. x. x. x. d.

 

 

My Example

Form: Wreathed Octave

Homeostasis

The water from the snow today
is stored away in mountains high
so we’re not dry come late in May.
Don’t damn the grey bleak winter sky
I don’t deny fair skies are good,
but fields and wood would suffer drought
were they without the snow that stood;
because it could we’re not without.

© Lawrencealot – March 1, 2015

Visual Template

Lilit

Thai poetry.

• The Lilit is an alternating Raay and Kloang verse. Usually the Raay is used to describe the action and the Kloang is the dialogue.

The Lilit is:
○ stanzaic, alternating Raay couplets with Kloang quatrains.
○ syllabic, the couplets are 5 syllable lines and the quatrains are L1-L3 7 syllable lines and L4 is a 9 syllable line.
○ couplets composed with a chain, linking the lines of the couplet and linking the stanzas.
○ rhymed, composed with cross, interlaced and end rhyme .

x x x x a
a x x x b
b x x x c x d
x x x x d x c
x x x x d x e
x x x x c x x x e
e x x x f
f x x x g
g x x x h x i
x x x x i x h
x x x x i x j
x x x x h x x x j

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

Chain: A series of verses or stanzas in which the last word of the verse or stanza is repeated as the first word of the next verse or stanza.

Cross rhyme: When the end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the next line

Interlaced rhyme: A word in the middle of one line rhymes with a word in the middle of another.

My Example

Form: Lilit

Nuance


Stop and take a look.
Look at what I’ve found.

“Found something, new you say?”
While it’s okay to view
the form that way, it’s old
in fact, which you can now behold.

Behold it’s Thailand.
Thailand’s ancient verse.

Verse once inscribed on walls
and in great halls described
is something called new now
what was transcribed– ignored somehow.

© Lawrencealot – January 29, 2015

Visual Template

Choriambic dactylic fusion

This is a complex accentual-syllabic form invented by Glenn Meisenheimer writing on Allpoetry.com as gmcookie.

The Choriambic dactylic fusion is:
Stanzaic, consisting of any number of quatrains.
Each stanza is rhymed: (a/a)x(b/b)x, where x is unrhymed, and the letters
within parentheses indicate internal rhyme with the end word.
Each stanza is metered:
L1 and L1 are choriambic dimeter. A choriamb is a trochee followed by an iamb, thus DUM da da DUM.
L2 is catelectic dactylic tetrameter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM da ^]
* catalectic:  (kăt′l-ĕk′tĭk) adj.  adj. Lacking one or more syllables especially in the final foot.
L4 is catelectic dactylic trimeter, thus [DUM da da] [DUM da da] [DUM ^ ^]

This should all be made clear by the visual template below.

Here is the inventor’s first poem using this form:

Goblins

Pounding away day after day,
Prying the gold from the heart of the mountain,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

When it gets dark time to embark,
Crawling from holes to the moon lighted surface,
Patter of feet, hunting for meat,
Deep in the darkening woods.

Man child is best, troublesome pest,
Juicy and tender when stewed or when roasted,
Rabbits are nice, deer will suffice,
Partridge or grouses will too.

Then they are gone just before dawn
Scurrying back to their home in the darkness,
Digging the ore, searching for more,
That’s what the goblins all do.

Pasted from <http://allpoetry.com/poem/11855944-Goblins-by-gmcookie>

My example

Gallivanting (Form: Choriambic dactylic fusion)

Riding the rails, sleeping in jails
youth was misspent if consensus is taken.
Sleeping in tents, riding the fence
these were the acts that he loved.

Going on hikes, riding on bikes
Travel was far more important than where to.
Seeing how life coped with it’s strife,
building himself on the fly.

Seas that he’d sail hunting for whale
toughened him up and exposed him to drinking,
planning to chase ladies in lace,
gambling with dice and with cards.

Hunting for gold, campsites were cold
metals he learned to decipher by looking.
Scattered around, wonders were found
When and wherever he went.

Filled up with life, finding a wife
knowing the place where he started was dandy,
he raised some kids, yep, that he did
here at the end of the line.

© Lawrencealot – January 15, 2015

Visual template

Choriambic dactylic fusion

Englyn penfyr

Englyn penfyr, én-glin pén-fir or short ended englyn in the old style, is the 1st codified Official Welsh Meter, anEnglyn. The oldest Welsh poetry in manuscript (early 9th century) was found written in the margin of the Juvencus Metrical Version of the Psalms, preserved in the Cambridge University Library. It is said to be stanzas written in praise of the Trinity in the englyn penfyr meter. Both the Englyn penfyr and the Englyn milwr are associated with “primitive Britain” and were out of vogue by the 12th century.

The englyn penfyr is:

  • stanzaic, written in any number of tercets.
  • syllabic, a 10 syllable line followed by two 7 syllable lines.
  • rhymed, mono rhymed, the main rhyme (the dominant rhyme of the stanza) of L1 found in the last half of the line followed by caesura end rhymes with L2 and L3.
  • composed with an addendum, a “gair cyrch” in L1 (syllables in the last half of a line that follow the main rhyme marked by caesura. The gair cyrch end rhyme is to be echoed or consonated as secondary rhyme in the 1st half of L2. The caesura often appears as a dash.)

 

Y wlad mewn gwisg o flodau -yn galw

Dwy galon i lwybrau

Yr ifanc drwy yr hafau

x x x x x x x A x b

x x b x x x A

x x x x x x A

The countryside, in its floral dress, calls

two hearts to roam the paths

of the young through summer days.

by Dosbarth Tanyroes “Y Flwyddn” 20th century found in Singing in Chains by Mererid Hopwood

Mud laps by Judi Van Gorder

Ripples in the mud pool fanned ~ far and wide

spreading inside-out to land

in small laps upon the sand.

Oprah by Judi Van Gorder

She sings her own tune – in touch with her soul

she shares her goal, grasps the moon

with wisdom none can impugn.

First Light by DC Martinson

Night before a Christmas morn – stars tarry;

Hymns carry a world so torn

To be saved by God’s Yet-born.

Night before a Christmas morn – all is seen

Red and green. Our hearts, forsworn,

Still are gifts to God’s Low-born.

Night before a Christmas morn – in the dark,

Holy spark. Candles have borne

Ev’ry soul to God’s High-born.

Dreams by Stephen Arndt

Come, let the ember lights burn low; no more

_____Let flames roar and flare, for so

_____Drowsing dreams may freely flow;

And let me dream what lies in store (I know

_____Men can’t show me that far shore

_____Which my plodding might explore).

Our dreamings mimic what might be, for they

_____Mold the clay to cast a key

_____Opening new worlds to see.

I am not deaf to what dreams say. Watch me:

_____I am free to stop and stay

_____Or to wend my winding way.

Are dreams like dice on which to bet? How few

_____Pay what’s due on piled-up debt!

_____What they grudge is what you get.

I know my dreams may not come true, and yet

_____Why forget that if they do,

_____I shall fly to where they flew?

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=987
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My attempt

Evil Must be Fought (Englyn penfyr)

I’d really like to preach peace – but I can’t.
Can’t chant for the wars to cease.
Can’t call to disband police.

When attacked you must defend – or else die.
You ask why do some descend?
Evil and greed I contend.

When evil tried to impose – and by force
I’d endorse those who arose,
though it was not peace they chose.

© Lawrencealot – December 10, 2014

Related Welsh Form are HERE.

Visual template

Englyn penfyr

Cywydd llosgyrnog

Cywydd llosgyrnog, ców-idd llos-gr-notheg, 12th codified ancient Welsh Meter, a Cywydd, is composed in sixains. It is speculated that the Welsh poets learned this meter from a common medieval Latin hymn form.

The Cywydd llosgyrnog is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of sixains.
• syllabic, the sixain is made up of 8-8-7-8-8-7 syllable lines.
• rhymed, L1 and L2 end-rhyme is echoed somewhere in the middle of L3 (3rd, 4th, or 5th syllables). L4 and L5 end-rhyme is echoed somewhere in the middle of L6. L3 and L6 end rhyme.

x x x x x x x A
x x x x x x x A
x x A x x x B (A could shift position slightly)
x x x x x x x C
x x x x x x x C
x x C x x x B (C could shift position slightly)
Y mae goroff a garaf
O gof aelaw aga a folaf
O choeliaf gael i chalon’
Am na welais i myn Elien
O Lanurful ilyn Aerfen
wawr mor wen o’r morynion
— Dafydd ap Demwnd[/i]
Friend or Foe by Judi Van Gorder

Knight of the Round Table, King’ s friend,
the fabled handsome one, men commend,
lived to defend, valor seen,
Sir Lancelot earned his reward.
Though prowess unmatched with the sword,
betrayed his Lord, loved his queen. 

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=976
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

The Evil of Dorian Johnson

The Evil of Dorian Johnson (Cywydd llosgyrnog)

Had he not lied, I have no doubt
the race-baiters would have found clout
based upon the past grievous acts –
not current facts, but an excuse.
Men’s Billy-clubs and dogs turned loose
and past abuse against blacks.

Liar became provocateur
with consequences real and sure.
“Hands-up” became a news-reel theme
that fit the scheme of liberal guilt
to ratchet hatred to the hilt
and tilt acts to the extreme.

Their community has been wrecked
and clearly left without respect.
Some children have no Christmas hopes
all caused by mopes* of thuggish bent
for whom this cultural descent
to crime meant – a city gropes.

One perp whose lie became a blaze,
that caused a city to be razed.
If there is justice anywhere
he ought to wear perpetual shame 
and be singled out by his name;
he’s to blame for much despair.

© Lawrencealot – November 26, 2014

Author Notes:
Dorian Johnson (accomplice in the convenience store robbery and witness
against Officer Wilson) Not only does he contradict himself in his own
statements in the same session, but makes unsustainable and impossible
claims about the event that are impossible to have happened.

*Mope(From Urban dictionary)
A person of any race or culture that is: presenting themselves as uneducated
(either by mannerisms or the clothing they are wearing). Plural = Mopes
Mopes usually are up to no good and may have an extensive criminal
record and a limited vocabulary.

Visual template
Cywydd llosgyrnog

Brazilian Haiku

Brazilian Rhyming Haiku

Quite an interesting variation of the haiku which originated in Brazil, a haiku which rhymes in a set pattern:

x x x x A
x B x x x x B
x x x x A

I suppose it is easier to rhyme in Portuguese than in English:

flowing amazon
paltry vapors so sultry,
steamy paragon

Michael Chellew 4-20-2006

Pasted from <http://theversifieronlinepoetryandartforum.yuku.com/topic/1340/Brazilian-Haiku#.VGwPcvnF9qU>

I have also seen rhyme patterns aaa and abb indicated.

My example

crying little boy
was stopped by the thoughtful cop
handing him a toy

© Lawrencealot – July 4, 2016

Blind Rhyme or Hidden Rhyme

Hidden Rhyme or Blind Rhyme is an exercise verse, sometimes used in poetry workshops and classrooms in which the end-word of each line rhymes internally early within the next line. This practice appears to be a loose descendant from 4th century Celtic poet’s use of aicill rhyme.

Hidden Rhyme, or Blind Rhyme is:
• suited to light verse.
• structured at the discretion of the poet.
• best when L1 sets a rhythm and the following lines maintain the same cadence.
• composed with the end-word of each line rhymed internally in the following line.
• often but not always, written with the first line rhyming with the last line.

Battle Ground Judi Van Gorder

That darn gopher has got to go!
I know he is God’s creation,
but damnation, he is a pest
at best who burrows under ground
and is bound and determined to eat
the sweet and tender roots of my garden.
I’ll harden my heart and deliver the blow!

Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1102>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

Shit Creek (Blind Rhyme)

I’ve got to hurry must skedaddle
lost my paddle up the creek.
“Don’t freak son, we’ll get another
before your mother sez ‘Aw, shit!’
Run in that store and get a paddle.”

© Lawrencealot – November 18, 2014

Visual template

Blind Rhyme

ABBA Poetry Form

ABBA or Mirror Poem is a rhetorical device that makes use of rhyme in a condensed and unique manner. Although I am sure the device had been used long before, the use of the term ABBA or Mirror Poem was discovered in a book of poetry by the English educator and poet John Caffyn 1987.

The ABBA is:
• a very short poem. A single strophe of 2, 3 or 4 lines.
• rhymed. The poem contains mirror rhyme in which the first and last syllables of the poem rhyme, as do the two center syllables. Rhyme scheme a…..b b ……a This reflective rhyme can be extended further, a…..b….c c ….b…..a or a….bc…d d ….cb ….a
• untitled.

Child at play,
day beguiled.
— jvg

Kick in the door,
bite,
fight,
war with a brick.
— jvg

Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1095>

My Thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the fine resource site.

My examples of
(ab)(ba)
(ab)cc(ba)
(ab)(cd)(dc)(ba),
and (ab)(cc)(ba)

Fit designation!
Resignation – quit!

Leaves to rake
huff
puff
rake the leaves.

Well I know
I didn’t say-
Pray tell why?
“Go to hell!”

Friend, this is it!
We’ve – I believe
hit the end.

(c) Lawrencealot – May 22, 2014

Visual Template

ABBA

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