Tag Archives: poetry form

Ababette Poetry Form

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This is an invented form (Aren’t they all), created by a Canadian Poet named D. D. Michaels who writes on Allpoetry.com, with many aliases over the 2-1/2 years I have followed him.

The Ababette is:

A 24 line poem,
Stanzaic, consisting of four sestets
Rhyme pattern: abcbc abdabd abeabe abfabf
Metrical, with all “a” lines being iambic dimeter
and all others being iambic trimeter.

My example

See Picture HERE

Velikovski’s View* (Ababette)

Well Holy cow!
I saw an awesome sight
above a canyon shelf
and I’ll avow
it bolstered my insight
about this earth itself.

I whispered wow!
The timing was so right
for I’m so seldom here
yet here and now
I’d visited this site.
The sky was crisp and clear.

I’ll disavow
the theory most books cite,
that water over years
was canyon’s plough.
I know that isn’t right
when “downhill” disappears.

I do know how
this happened in one night!
A million times the force
of this fine show
when Jupiter was bright
and proximate, of course.

© Lawrencealot – September 23, 2014

*See more about Velikovski here
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Velikovsky

Visual template

Ababette

ABC Poem Poetry Form

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• ABC poem, a subgenre of the Alphabet Poem is sometimes used as a word game for children in which the child is asked to think up words in alphabetical order and write a poem using those words as the first word of each line. It is an Abecedarius without the history or the spiritual character. Each line of the poem begins with a sequential letter of the alphabet.

• Balancing Act by Judi Van Gorder
An acrobatic
bird with a blue
crown crossed over and
down the daunting
extended
facade
gripping the grate with
half-hearted
indolence.

My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

There was an Old Lady

An old lady, I first thought
But then I looked again
Certainly she’s maybe not
Defined as old my friend.

Especially in times of later born –
Fine times in which we live.
Granted, that she does seem worn
Having always had to give.

I know she was a helpmate first,
Joining with her man each day,
Keeping order when the worst
Lean times came their way.

Mostly she performed
Necessary tasks
Often, when informed –
Probably unasked.

Quietly she made a life,
Raising children, teaching.
Steadily, her husband’s wife
Taking without over-reaching.

Usual days would end in prayer,
Verses would be read you bet.
Wondrous things we not yet there;
X-rays weren’t invented yet.

Yes, she pre-dated bodice rippers,
Zones for buses, even zippers.

Abecedarius Poetry Form

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Abecedarius is a lyrical poem composed as an acrostic employing the poetic device of the first letters of its lines forming an alphabet. To use the alphabet in a unique manner is the creative challenge of this genre, other than the obvious of finding words for the letters x and z.

Alphabetic acrostics first appear in Hebrew religious poetry found in the Old Testament. It seems that using letters of the alphabet as the initial letter of each line was thought by ancient cultures to connect the human with the divine. This device was considered a conduit to God and was commonly used in prayers, hymns and oracles.

According to the Harper Collins Study Bible; 1993, one variant of the Abecedarius is found beginning with Psalm 9 and continuing through Psalm 10:18. There, every other line begins with a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Another is found in Psalm 119, written in 22 stanzas of 8 lines. All lines in a given stanza begin with the same letter. Too bad the English translation does not reflect the Hebrew alphabetical sequence.

In modern times, the alphabet is often found in word games for children and is sometimes called the ABC Poem.
Psalm in Action by Judi Van Gorder

All praise our Creator, called by many names,
Blessed is the work of His hands.
Cant in dulcet tones His psalms,
Dance with energy in His presence
Eager to follow His lead 
For faith is an action word.
Gather the oppressed, offer support,
Hold them close in His name.
Include all who ask, honor those who don’t.
Joyfully serve all of His commands.
Kindle a flame in your heart to
Light the way for others that they may see,
Mantled by His virtue, we endure.
No one is less in His sight
Offer sustenance and acceptance to all.
Protect with fervor His creation.
Quiet is His manner, 
Righteousness His strength,
Science His invention,
Time His plan. 
Unconditional is His love, 
Vast His ability to forgive,
Wise His teachings and
Xenias, His gifts given in abundance. 
Yes, is my answer to His call, my
Zeal, will be tempered by tolerance in His image.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1064
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.
 
My example
There was an Old Lady

An old lady, I first thought
But then I looked again
Certainly she’s maybe not
Defined as old my friend.

Especially in times of later born –
Fine times in which we live.
Granted, that she does seem worn
Having always had to give.

I know she was a helpmate first,
Joining with her man each day,
Keeping order when the worst
Lean times came their way.

Mostly she performed
Necessary tasks
Often, when informed –
Probably unasked.

Quietly she made a life,
Raising children, teaching.
Steadily, her husband’s wife
Taking without over-reaching.

Usual days would end in prayer,
Verses would be read you bet.
Wondrous things we not yet there;
X-rays weren’t invented yet.

Yes, she pre-dated bodice rippers,
Zones for buses, even zippers.

Note:  This is not an ABCDarilus Poetry form, for it lacks the spiritual or historic reference.
It is properly filed under ABC Poem.

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)

ABBA Poetry Form

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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

A L'Arora Poetry Form

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The A L’Arora, a form created by Laura Lamarca, is stanzaic, consisting of an octave made up of a sestet and a couplet.
It is syllabic with no count or meter specified.
The rhyme scheme for this form is abcdefgf.
The minimum length for the poem is 4 stanzas (32 lines or more) with no maximum length stipulation.
The A L’Arora is named after Laura Lamarca as “La” is her signature. “Aurora” is Italian and means “dawn” – “Arora” is derived from this. This form is dedicated to Chad Edwards.

Rhyme Scheme Re-Stated: xxxxxaxa, where “x” = no rhyme
My Example Poem

Simple, Not Simplistic      (A L’Arora)
 
My mentor mentioned making my attempts
at penning poetry as speaking to a friend.
The grandiose perhaps will awe a few,
the academics, whose investment
in obcsure even
may seem propitious.
 
The common man will find
pretention not auspicious.
Your poems should be fun or run with one
to ideas delible in reader’s mind
making them now indelible in his own
Arcadia.
Eschew condemnations, and benisons
but be exponent of provoking thought.
 
Let poetry maraud through newest  notions
and through concepts the Ancients may be taught.
Ignorance is pandemic
and helped along
by dogma,
the quintessential foe of reason.
If agencies are instrumental
in dumbing people down. . .
 
We poets and the world-wide net
is where new hope is found.
Confounding folks
won’t do the trick
Didactic rants
shall also fail,
but creative and probing poems
when free of condescension,
 
may lead the Exodus from apathy
and get the world’s attention.
 
(c) Lawrencealot – Nov 2013
 
I visual template is neither possible nor required.
 

15-10 Alternating Poetry Form

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A poem where 15 syllable stanzas which begin with an anapest foot and having couplet rhyme

alternate with 10 syllable iambic stanzas with cross rhyme.

Rhyme Pattern: aabb cdcd

(aabbccdd), 16 lines or more, alternating line length

 

I first saw this used by Jeff Green but have no idea if is already a name form.

 

Example Poem

Constitutional Deficiency

 A democracy cannot endure when gimme people learn
that they can persuade their reps to confiscate what others earn.
This was first proclaimed by Tytler, then Alexis de Tocqueville
The right to direct one’s earnings is in fact what makes one free.

My liberal friends think as I once did,
that government should cure whatever’s wrong.
I recognized my error as a kid.
Someone must pay the piper for his song.

 We’ve had only one elected man at top who truly tried
to impede the juggernaught we’ve wrought but could not hold the tide.
To defend our nation, use its strength to minimize abuse
are enough, but power wants more growth and leaps to find excuse.

The Tytle Cycle must run its full course.
Our try died not from faulty prior design.
We’ll work for masters like the noble horse.
The blame my friends is really yours and mine.

© Lawrencealot – Feb. 7, 2013

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5/3 Meter Poetry form

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A poem consisting of an odd number of quatrains (15 lines or more)
I have no idea if this form has been otherwise named, if you know please advise.
Alternating lines of 5 and 3 syllables, where
the odd lines consist of  an IAMB and an ANAPEST
da-DUM da-DUM-da
and the even lines consist of a DACTYL
DUM-da-DUM

Each stanza uses individual rhyme pattern –abab
where the b-rhymes are always feminine rhyme

The first stanza is a refrain, repeated as the final stanza. 

 

Example poem:

Paradise Kept   (5 3 Meter)

Such colors are not
 accidents
 so birds then forgot
 abstinence.

Their evolution
manifest
a bright solution
was the best.When foes are but few
we evolve
with different view,
with resolve.

Most survive with ease
but compete
to awe and appease–
the elite.

They sung and they played
and they danced
their colors arrayed
to enhance.

Let man not destroy
thru his greed
the habitat of joy
where.they breed.

Such colors are not
accidents
so birds then forgot
abstinence.

© Lawrencealot – March 30, 2013

Visual Template
5-3 Meter
 
 
 

7/5 Trochee Poetry Form

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The 7/5 Trochee, created by Andrea Dietrich,
of 2 or more quatrain stanzas ( 8 lines or more)  with the following set rules:

Meter:  Trochaic
Syllabic: 7/5/7/5
Rhyme Scheme:  abcb or abab

The meter is trochee, which means alternating stressed and
unstressed beats in each line, with each line beginning and
ending in a stressed syllable. This is a simple lyrical type|little poem, so rhymes will be basic, nothing fancy.

The poem itself should give a description of something of interest to the poet.

There is not a set number of these quatrain type stanzas,

but a typical 7/5 Trochee would consist of two quatrains,

with the second stanza serving to tie up the idea presented in the first stanza.

Pasted from <http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/75trochee.html>

 Example Poem

Nap

Sleeping eight hours every night
Seems to some divine.
Choosing such is quite their right.
Just don’t make it mine.

 I will sleep that much or more.
taking smaller blocks.
For in afternoon I snore
Even wearing socks.

 
© Lawrencealot –  June 19, 2012
Visual Template
 
 

Chant Royal Poetry Form

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A French poetic form and variation of the ballad form,
it consists of five (or three) 11-line stanzas
(there are variations, and some sources allow 8-16 lines)
and an envoi of 5 or 7 lines. The meter is not determined.
Each line should be of the same length.  The form uses a refrain at the end of each stanza and the end of the envoi.
The rhyme scheme is
 ababccddedE with ccddedE or ddedE for the envoi.
The poet may aim to avoid repeating a rhyme word throughout the poem’s length. The form is traditionally used for
stately or heroic subjects.
The envoi  traditionally addresses a “Prince”.
Have seen in both in Tetrameter and Pentameter so take your choice.
Related forms: Ballade, Ballade Stanza, Ballade Supreme, Double Ballade, Canzone II, Chanso, Double Ballade Supreme, Double Refrain Ballade, Double Refrain Ballade Supreme, Grand Ballade or Chant Royal.

Example Poem
Foolish Quests (Chant Royal) (Version 2)
I wooed and won a girl more bold than I.
She led the way, resolving mutual lust.
She urged my hand to feel her velvet thigh
and revel in the softness of her bust.
In focused fascination we’d convene
in what without our love might seem obscene.
A call to duty meant I had to leave;
to think she’d wait would simply be naive.
I married her and bound her with my name
For each of us, out minds now felt relieved.
The future will be what our now became.
I sought success and things success could buy
A house, a boat, income that one could trust.
The babies came, we didn’t have to try,
and diligence at work became my thrust.
I placed my love in virtual quarantine
and let my chase for money intervene.
My wife, neglected home alone, felt peeved;
her urges, often times, I’d not perceived.
Her burning passion rose above a game
and my ineptness she could not believe.
The future will be what our now became.
Her figure beckoned, pleasing to the eye
her manner teased and oft left men non-plussed,
but when she chose, she’d exit with a guy,
and quenched a thirst we’d really not discussed.
My toiling for a future still unseen
had painted me as coldly philistine.
Forsaking beauty that we might have weaved
my tunnel-vision left us both aggrieved.
I thought she knew my love remained the same,
(I should have worn my heart upon my sleeve).
The future will be what our now became.
Oh Prince! prithee, praise, please, and bliss your queen
and growl in lust should she show sultry mien.
One’s love needs nurturing to be believed,
with passion often given and received.
Mere years ought not allow your spark to tame;
it’s grand what frequent ardor can achieve.
The future will be what our now became.
© Lawrence Eberhart – Feb 1, 2016
 
 
Visual Template
3-Stanza, pentameter version

ChantRoyal2

Foolish Quests (Chant Royal) (Version 4)

We both were under Hebe’s*sway
the day I took a slight detour
and found a road-side hide-away
where she was their delight du jure.
Her ample bust and winsome smile
made eating there each day worthwhile.
Curvaceousness was her domain;
testosterone’s a young man’s bane .
Our fascination thereby excused
her repartee was our champagne.
A future’s bought with minutes used.
With her I had fun things to say
I teased and told her jokes galore
we both enjoyed the interplay.
My friend said, “I think you can score.”
Without a scheme and lacking guile
I doubted that, that’s not my style.
The notion was almost profane
that surely was not my campaign
of such you must be disabused.
We simply flirted while we schmoozed.
A future’s bought with minutes used.
‘Ere long I brought her a bouquet
since we’d established great rapport;
she thought a date would be okay
her “Yes.” set my young heart to soar.
With tactics measured to beguile
she put to me a carnal trial;
I certainly would not abstain
nor did my consciousness complain;
we neither of us felt misused
not once or twice or yet again.
A future’s bought with minutes used.
To bind her so she would not stray,
when Navy sent me from this shore
we wed before I went away;
we were betrothed forevermore.
Though often gone for quite a while,
my need to serve, we’d reconcile.
To propagate, we both were fain
so mostly pregnant she’d remain.
when children came we were enthused.
(The husband doesn’t feel the pain.)
A future’s bought with minutes used.
The Dot.com creed caused her dismay;
(I worked all day, then worked some more
to business greed I’d fallen prey
but then it seemed a needed chore.)
I thought my effort to stockpile
more cash and toys was nothing vile.
A loss of passion was no gain,
so she sought out another swain
to take that which I’d disabused.
(Which here and now, I can explain.)
A future’s bought with minutes used.
The queen, the king must not exile,
a part of love must be tactile.
To strive for gold’s to strive in vain
when you have love and lust to reign
and even if you’re not accused
relationships will still be bruised.
A future’s bought with minutes used.
© Lawrence Eberhart – February 5, 2016
Reworked with assistance from
Andre Emmanuel Bendavi ben-YEHU
Iambic Tetrameter Visual Template
chant royal3