Tag Archives: octaves

Tho Sau Chu

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The following description and example are reposted with permission from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on that fine resource.

Tho Sau Chu or Six-Word Verse [Vietnamese] is measured by word count and uses either alternate of envelope rhyme. It can be written in quatrains or octaves. When written in octaves it is called Six-Eight Poetry  The elements of the Tho Sau Chu are:

  1. stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains. It can also be written in any number of octaves.
  2. measured by word count, 6 words per line.
  3. rhymed, either alternate, abab cdcd etc. (when written as Six-Eight abababab cdcdcdcd etc.) or envelope, abba cddc etc. (when written in octaves abbaabba cddccddc etc.)

My Example

Form: Tho Sau Chu

Old New Form Takes a Bow

This poetry form comes from Vietnam
which doesn’t rhyme with Uncle Sam
but with either mom or bomb.
Am I certain? Yes I am!

If my lines led you astray,
it’s because I’m a contrary guy.
I feel my misdirection is okay
when a second reading explains why.

I’m writing this Tho Sau Chu
(though English cannot do it proud.)
This form hereby makes its debut
with only one hundred words allowed.

I think none will be uptight
with a new form that’s presented
to shine and share the spotlight;
with ninety-six words I feel contented.

© Lawrencealot – January 31, 2015

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Octava Real

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The Octava Real is the Spanish version of the Ottava Rima. This 14th century stanzaic form, like its Italian counterpart, is a narrative, often telling the story of important events.

The Octava Real is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of octaves.
• hendecasyllabic, written in 11 syllable lines.
• rhymed, abababcc.
• a narrative, tells a story.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1913
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example
Assailing Wassailing (Form: Octava Real)

It’s friendly and noble I guess to wassail
if wifey approves of your gaggle of friends.
You all sit around drinking pints of good ale
insulting each other, then making amends.
Too often somebody will end up in jail.
It’s time that I stop it, my wife now contends;
my children agree and my doctor does too,
“wassailing is not for a codger like you.”

© Lawrencealot – December 30, 2014
was·sail (wŏs′əl, wŏ-sāl′)
n.
1.
a. A salutation or toast given in drinking someone’s health or as an expression of goodwill at a festivity.
b. The drink used in such toasting, commonly ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar.
2. A festivity characterized by much drinking.

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You may choose any or no meter. This is catalectic amphibraic tetrameter.

Octava Real

Mistress Bradstreet Stanza

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Mistress Bradstreet Stanza is a stanzaic verse attributed to American poet John Berryman (1914-1972) patterned after the frame of his 57 stanza poem Homage to Mistress Bradstreet which he said was developed after a life time of studying Yeats.

The Mistress Bradstreet Stanza is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of octaves.
• accentual verse, composed with 5-5-3-4-5-5-3-6 stresses per line.
• rhymed, rhyme scheme abcbddba, the a and d rhymes are a constant although occasionally the rhyme changes to abcbddca. 

Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John Berryman (1st 3 stanzas) 

The Governor your husband lived so long
moved you not, restless, waiting for him? Still,
you were a patient woman.—
I seem to see you pause here still:
Sylvester, Quarles, in moments odd you pored
before a fire at, bright eyes on the Lord,
all the children still.
‘Simon …’ Simon will listen while you read a Song.

[2] Outside the New World winters in grand dark
white air lashing high thro’ the virgin stands
foxes down foxholes sigh,
surely the English heart quails, stunned.
I doubt if Simon than this blast, that sea,
spares from his rigour for your poetry
more. We are on each other’s hands
who care. Both of our worlds unhanded us. Lie stark,

[3] thy eyes look to me mild. Out of maize & air
your body’s made, and moves. I summon, see,
from the centuries it.
I think you won’t stay. How do we
linger, diminished, in our lovers’ air,
implausibly visible, to whom, a year,
years, over interims; or not;
to a long stranger; or not; shimmer & disappear.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1885
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

Tarnish (Form: Mistress Bradstreet Stanza)

In retrospect will history decide
that Hillary achieved her life-time goal
ascending to a stage
where she could play a noted role?
What cost, ignoring Clinton’s frequent trysts?
(His charm and force few maidens could resist.)
She wore the martyr role,
and seemed to benefit by standing by his side.

His faults his party clearly could abide
and character was deemed a price too high.
Hillary could not be blamed.
Yet global standards must apply.
She’ll likely never rise to stand a midst
the Goldas and the Thatchers who were kissed
with conviction noted and untamed.
Most likely a nod to greatness will be denied.

© Lawrencealot – December 29, 2014

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Mistress Bradstreet Stanza

Stellar

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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 Stellar is an invented stanzaic form framed in octaves and introduced by Viola Berg

The Stellar is:
stanzaic, written in any number of octaves.
metric, iambic L1-L4, & L8 are tetrameter, L5 & L6 are catalectic pentameter and L7 is dimeter.
rhymed, ababccdd efefgghh etc.
because L5 &L6 are catalectic, they have feminine endings.
 

 
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

 

Succinct (Stellar)

Expanding to ad nauseam
on anything at all my friend
upsets folks and soon you’ll see ’em
just anxious for the talk to end.
Kids forced to read by educator,
long epics, – did, but came to hate her.
Don’t write a tome
If you want poems read at home.

© Lawrencealot – September 28, 2014

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Stellar

The de la Mare

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• 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
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The de la Mare

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

The Abercrombie Poetry Form

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The Abercrombie is a stanza pattern using sprung rhythm and an interlocking rhyme scheme. It is patterned after Hymn to Love by British poet, Lascelles Abacrombie (1881-1938).

The Abercrombie is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of octaves made up of 2 quatrains.
• metric, written in sprung rhythm with L1,L3,L5,L7 are pentameter, L2 & L6 are tetrameter and L4 & L8 is trimeter.
• rhymed, interlocking rhyme scheme abac dbdc, efeg hfhg, etc. L4 and L8 are feminine rhyme. The interlocking rhyme is within the octave and does not extend to the next octave.
Hymn to Love by Lascelles Abercrombie
We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
As théou, Léove, were the déep thought
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
Thy fires of thought out-spoken:
But burn’d not through us thy imagining
Like fiérce méood in a séong céaught,
We were as clamour’d words a fool may fling,
Loose words, of meaning broken.
For what more like the brainless speech of a fool,
The lives travelling dark fears,
And as a boy throws pebbles in a pool
Thrown down abysmal places?
Hazardous are the stars, yet is our birth
And our journeying time theirs;
As words of air, life makes of starry earth
Sweet soul-delighted faces;
As voices are we in the worldly wind;
The great wind of the world’s fate
Is turn’d, as air to a shapen sound, to mind
And marvellous desires.
But not in the world as voices storm-shatter’d,
Not borne down by the wind’s weight;
The rushing time rings with our splendid word
[Like darkness fill’d with fires.
For Love doth use us for a sound of song,
And Love’s meaning our life wields,
Making our souls like syllables to throng
His tunes of exultation,
Down the blind speed of a fatal world we fly,
As rain blown along earth’s fields;
Yet are we god-desiring liturgy,
Sung joys of adoration;
Yea, made of chance and all a labouring strife,
We go charged with a strong flame;
For as a language Love hath seized on life
His burning heart to story.
Yea, Love, we are thine, the liturgy of thee,
Thy thought’s golden and glad name,
The mortal conscience of immortal glee,
Love’s zeal in Love’s own glory.>
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668

My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for her wonderful resource site.

This is a FORM that I shall not attempt to write, for I cannot properly determine rhythm that is accentual or “sprung”. This is merely included for a more complete reference to those studying forms named for British Poets.
(abacdbdc)

Brace Octave

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Brace Octave
Type:
Structure, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description:
An eight-line stanzaic form with rhyme of abbaabba or abbacddc. No requirements on meter or length. The Italian octave is a subgenre of this.
Origin:
English
Schematic:
abbaabba or abbacddc
Rhythm/Stanza Length:
8
See Also:
Status:
Incomplete
My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.
Brace Octave ——————————————
The Brace Octave has its roots in music. The brace is the wavey symbol that joins 2 staffs of music, indicating that both scores are played simultaneously. The verse form referred to as the Brace Octave is a lyrical blend of meter and rhyme, the rhyme scheme almost taking the shape of the brace. It could even be said that the octave itself acts as a brace joining two envelope quatrains.
The Brace Octave is:
  • stanzaic, written in any number of octaves (8 lines) made up of 2 envelope quatrains. When writing more than one octave, even numbered stanzas grouped in twos seems to fit best with the venue of the form.
  • metric, iambic tetrameter. Some sources indicate no meter necessary but given the musical nature of the verse, it seems to me measured lines are appropriate if not a prerequisite. The best known poem utilizing the Brace Octave is Two Songs from a Play by W.B. Yeats which is written in iambic tetrameter so I guess Mr. Yeats agrees with me.
  • rhymed, with an envelope rhyme scheme abbacddc (see it does sort of look like a brace lying down.)
    Here is     William Butler Yeats’ poem which was published in his book The Towerin 1928. There is a footnote from Yeats “These songs were sung by musicians in my play Resurrection.”
Two Songs from a Play by William Butler Yeats
I
I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
And then did all the Muses sing
As though God’s death were but a play.
Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo’s painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.
II
In pity for man’s darkening thought
He walked that room and issued thence
In Galilean turbulence;
The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love’s pleasure drives his love away,
The painter’s brush consumes his dreams;
The herald’s cry, the soldier’s tread
Exhaust his glory and his might:
Whatever flames upon the night
Man’s own resinous heart has fed.
My thanks to Judy Van Gorder from PMO for the above.  I
 tend to agree with her conceptually about the meter and line length, but many do not.  Below is a poem that strays from isosyllabic lines and abandons consistent meter.
~Love Is Not Just  A State Of Mind~
(Brace Octave)
Love is a very beautiful feeling
Can make you sappy or happy
And at times can give you  healing
Sometimes makes us so unhappy
You reach the stars or hit the ceiling
Emotions makes us  sad or happy
Love is not just a state of mind
For in your heart love you can find
Dorian Petersen Potter
aka ladydp2000
copyright@2011
My example poem
Short Shrift    (Brace Octave)
I tell ya friend
it’s quite okay
to write this way
or else append
sounds to extend
the word array
with more to say
from start to end.
© Lawrencealot – April 20, 2014
Although I do believe that more pleasant poetry results from utilizing meter and a consistent line length of iambic tetrameter or longer, I have to allow any octave using envelope rhyme to be tagged with this name.

Double Ballade

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Double Ballade
Type:
Structure, Metrical Requirement, Repetitive Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Isosyllabic
Description:
A ballade on steroids, this form has six octaves and may have a quatrain envoy. The double ballade uses only three rhymes throughout with each verse keeping the pattern: ababbcbC and the envoy being bcbC with C being a repeated refrain throughout.
This is also known as the Double Ballade with Eight-Line Stanza
Origin:
French
Schematic:
ababbcbC
ababbcbC
ababbcbC
ababbcbC
ababbcbC
ababbcbC
bcbC
Rhythm/Stanza Length:
8
Line/Poem Length:
52
Copyright © 2001-2013 by Charles L. Weatherford. All rights reserved.
My Thanks to Charles for his wonderful resource at http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/
 
Example Poem
 
Another Chance
When dot coms came on board I didn’t speculate.
I could have if I’d but made the observation-
A brand new paradigm was here to celebrate.
I was caught up in my work-place aspirations,
too focused to consider new embarkations.
When Microsoft and Apple, started on their way
then Facebook I ignored early information.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
I’m older now, retired have time to meditate
and see the social net’s current domination
which gives pretense the timid must appreciate.
One son made bucks with SimCity’s fascination
by selling (on E-bay), his accumulation
of Simoleans – fake money one used to play
the game. He charged for their virtual desperation.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
The Internet’s too huge to really regulate
unless you admit dictator inclinations;
the power of shared knowledge bears an awesome weight.
In two thousand-nine was laid a new foundation
for currency not controlled by any nation.
for Nakamo, (out of nothing) I guess you’d say
Has denied nations rights to manipulation.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
The Bitcoin* disallows the nations to inflate
or change the money value by declaration.
Explaining how it’s done would really complicate
this verse, and worse (it’s a complex calculation.)
One earns coins by solving block-chain computations
and each stores each trade in their private dossiere.
I’ve joined the world-wide force after consultation.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
I’m glad I’ve got a savvy kid to emulate.
It likely a most worthwhile association
I helped him start so he could really educate
us both, and now I have had fine confirmation.
I’m mining now with unrestrained jubilation.
I’ve even overcome my wife’s abject dismay.
Put APICs* right to work; ignore fluctuations.
I wonder if there’s something’s going on today?
The fewer folks that are inclined to replicate
my acts, the better for my coin generation,
but I invite, right now you each to imitate
my actions.  Leave the sedated population.
The gift I offer friends is this conversation.
Get ready, for the future’s not too far away.
So trust me! Better still get more information.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
An Asian nation’s act caused devaluation
but global markets compensated and held sway.
Miners make money at most all valuations.
I wonder if there’s something going on today?
© Lawrencealot – January  18, 2014
*Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system and digital currency introduced as open source software in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto.
*Application Specific Integrated Circuits
Visual Template
52 lines with envoy