Tag Archives: poetry forms

Gemstone

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This is a form invented by Lisa Morris , aka Streambed on Allpoetry.

  • It is a 32 line poem made up of four 8 line stanzas.
  • Each stanza consists of 5 iambic tetrameter lines, and 3 iambic trimeter lines
  • The Rhyme pattern for each stanza is ababccba (with independent rhyme)
  • Meter: Lines 2,4, and 7 are iambic trimeter, the rest are iambic tetrameter.
  • The form map is:
    • 8 A
    • 6 B
    • 8 A
    • 6 B
    • 8 C
    • 8 C
    • 6 B
    • 8 A

Streambed’s Introduction:

I believe this is a new form; if you know of it from somewhere else, please give me a link and I will include the information. It is named after the poem I created it for: “The Gemstone” below.

Streambed’s Example

Form: Gemstone

The Gemstone

She kept a gemstone hid away,
once given, at a ball,
because she feared her mother’s say;
she’d force the man to call.
She hid it in her silks and floss
beneath the chest’s enameled gloss,
and underneath it all
the gemstone there in splendor lay.

She took it out when nights were still
and held it to her breast,
which surely was the man’s first will
when they had kissed, caressed.
It felt so cool against her skin;
she wished for his strong eyes again
and then she was distressed
and paced before her window sill.

He said he’d claim her as his bride
before the year was out,
and on this word she had relied,
but now she had her doubts.
The heiress of a large estate
with many, many hearts in wait
and many gifts to tout
was seen with him, out on a ride.

She laid her trust down in the drawer;
the facets, too, were there,
and in her mind, she heard the roar
of dancing in his care.
That night might be all that they had,
and if it was, her heart was glad
the gem he chose to share;
for it too sparked within its core.

© Lisa Morris

My Example

Form: Gemstone

Chivalry

I chose to honor womankind
as Arthur said we must.
They may be common or refined
but chivalry they trust.
They often can and will beguile;
they were designed to make men smile.
They promise more than lust;
they nurture using heart and mind.

For man there ought to be one maid
eclipsing all the rest
and she need never be afraid
when he’s put to the test.
I’m a man who loves them all,
the thin, the fat, the short and tall;
mankind is so well blessed
with diverse beauty, so arrayed.

A young man is not always smart
when wooing just for sport.
He’ll take a trollop or a tart
and happily consort.
No harm is done to either one
if both agree it’s just for fun.
Take care! Do not distort –
nor trifle with another’s heart.

If chivalry can take control
and lead you through your life
you’ll play a noble happy role
completely free of strife.
You’ll grace the days of maidens fair
creating jealously nowhere;
you’ll please your chosen wife
thereby making two lives whole.

© Lawrencealot – February 15, 2016

Visual template:

Note the use of the acephalous (headless) foot in the final line. Although a volta is not mandated, line 7 seems the proper place should you choose to employ a turn.

Adonics

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Adonics
Type: Line, Appendages
Description: An Adonic is a two foot line: Xxx XX or maybe Xxx Xx. It depends on the expert one consults. It is more often found as a tagline on the end of a stanza than as separate stanzas.
Origin: Greek
Schematic:  Xxx XX or Xxx Xx
Line/Poem Length: 5

Pasted from http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/4.shtml
with thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his years of work on the wonderful Poetrybase resource.

This is Greek and classical, why not begin at the beginning.  An Adonic poem is one without rhyme, with just five syllables per line and a specific meter, or syllable arrangement.  We’re at the beginning so lets talk about that first.

When you say the word trouser you say it in a certain way, TROUSer.  There are two syllables and the first one is pronounced more clearly and for longer than the second syllable.  The first syllable is stressed and the second unstressed.  Put in different terms the word present can be done either way.  I have bought you a PREsent, would see the first syllable stressed and the second left unstressed.  I would like you to preSENT this to the group, puts the stress on the second syllable.  The meter of a poem, even more than the rhyme can carry it and give it a song-like rhythm so it is important to learn the specific ones for each form.

Back to ancient Greece.  This poem has a meter like this: stress-unstress-unstress-stress-stress, but the final one can also be unstressed.  We can express it from now on like this /uu//, where / is a stress and u is unstressed.  For instance the wordmicrowave would fit into the beginning of the line, and coffee to the end.  Microwave-coffee (this is what you’ll have to do if you forgot your coffee whilst writing poems).  Not a great poem yet but play around with the syllables until you’ve got it.  At least there’s no rhyme to confuse issues.  Read about meter and feet here, but really we’ll build on it as we go.  There’s another good website here.  The feet, or collections of meter and stresses represented here are called a Dactyl and Trochee.

Wiki tells me this poem originates from laments for Adonis, so write your own lament for your departed Adonis.  Although mine is about my baby niece who is at the moment over-enthusiastic about everyone’s

Christmas candy.
Chewing sweets today
Your few teeth work hard
you swallow too soon
gasping for your breath
So I try to help
Patting on your back
Until you giggle
and rummage for more.

You can see, this kind of meter restraint doesn’t do a lot for me, but short lines and no rhyme certainly makes for easy writing, and if you end up with a nice short-line poem you can tweak the meter afterwards.

Alphacouplets poetry form

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Alphacouplets

Alphacouplets: The couplets rhyme. You begin with a noun.
In these examples= angel, cat, blimp, turtle, sky, cloud, egg.
You put three words beginning with the same letter before the word and then you rhyme the second line. You can join them together to make a longer poem.

An arrogant, amorous, agile angel
formed with earth and cloud–a love triangle.
An adoring, absent-minded, adolescent angel
wore her halo at a rakish angel.
Cantankerous, cranky, curious cat
battled with owners, fleas and gnat.
Bulbous, beautiful, blazoned blimp
burped, busted and became limp.
Timid, testosteroid, trying turtle
found his shell a hurdle to being fertile.
Scarlet, scowling, screaming sky
turned sodden earth to mud pie.
Catastrophic, clamorous, clobbered cloud
said, “ Thunderhead, stop for crying out loud.”
Eloquent, elegant, egotistical egg
pontificated too long upon a keg.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

Specifications restated:
An Alpha Couplet is:
• A stanza of any length, consisting entirely of rhymed couplets.
• The final word of the first line of each couplet must be a noun
• Three alliterative words must precede that noun.
• The next line must rhyme with the first.
• There are NO metric or line-length requirements, nor prohibitions.

My example

Wormhole Wisdom (Form: Alphacouplets)

A mostly mature, maybe modern man
arrived sometimes before is trip began.
He wanted wisdom with a winsome wife,
but found that younger women caused much strife.
He set to sail thru interstellar space
expecting time would much improve our race.
He viewed the vista of a vacuous void
so empty that he darn well was annoyed.
He meant to move and mingle now with men
but Wolfe was right! You can’t go home again.

© Lawrencealot – December 20, 2014

Visual template

Alpha Couplet

Acrostic Decima poetry form

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Acrostic Decima

Acrostic Decima: the Decima form with an acrostic. Write the two five words used in the poem vertically to start the line.
Syllable Count: 8 syllables per line.
Rhyme Scheme: a-a-b-a-b a-a-b-b-a.
Only two rhymes a & b. Not a rhyming couplet at the end.
OSPA=Oregon State Poetry Association. Wilma Erwin was an
OSPA president.

A Poem of Praise and Healing
For Wilma Erwin

Wisdom flows from vision and hand.
Ideas become poetry.
Lover of all humanity.
Many poems formed from her command.
Advocates nature, family.
Energetic in every way–
Rose Festival, OSPA–
Writing, teaching, our dear friend
Imagines real haiku. We send
Now our love and prayers today.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/Acrostic-Decima.pdf
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

My example

Quill Quota ( Form: Acrostic Decima)

Quit worrying, there is no need
Unless much haste has been decreed.
Instead, pretend you’re having fun
Lets write instead as you’ve agreed
Lots of new forms done one by one.

Quaaludes or any other speed
Undoes one’s mind you must concede.
Organize what you have begun,
Then someday soon you’ll be all done.
All that’s left now is to proceed.

© Lawrencealot – December 20, 2014

Visual template

Acrostic Decima

Alcmanic verse poetry form

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Alcmanic verse is a metric line of dactylic tetrameter. It was named for the ancient Greek poet Alcman and was commonly used in early Greek verse. 

——-Quantitative verse Lss / Lss / Lss / Lss 
——-in English, accentual syllabic Suu / Suu / Suu / Suu 

——-Beatles’ lyric from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
——-Pict ure your / self in a / boat on a / riv er with
——-tang er ine / tree ees and / mar mal ade / skis ii es 

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1252
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

Peeing Into the Wind (Alcmanic Verse)
Peeing Into the Wind

Damning the voters who wanted trough feeding and
Cursing and hating Obama’s direction, he
Went to the polls with small hope of succeeding but
damned if the folks did not make a correction.

© Lawrencealot – November 10, 2014

Visual template

Alcmanic verse

Alternating rhyme quatrain

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• Alternating rhyme quatrain is a 4 line unit with alternating abab cdcd rhyme which changes from stanza to stanza. These are often found in sequence within an octave. (eg. an octave made up of 2 alternating rhymed quatrains would have a rhyme scheme of ababcdcd vs an an octave with alternating rhyme abababab).
Line length and meter at the discretion of the poet.

To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sing
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast–
The desert and illimitable air–
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1007#alternating
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

This is a very flexible form, I used it for a brevity contest below.

My example

Toadstool Time
Toadstool Time
Toadstools I see
with polkadots.
or could they be
mushrooms with spots?
Noddy might know,
but he won’t say.
Come join him though,
it’s fun to play!

© Lawrencealot – November 10, 2014
Credit art work “Noddy and Big-ears” “borrowed from Google”

Abbreviated Haiku Poetry Form

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• Abbreviated Haiku is written in either 2 lines with syllable count 7/2 or 3 lines with syllable count 3/5/3 or 2/3/2. This is sometimes called Miku.

creeper weeds 
cover garden path
blistered hands
–jvg

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1137#abbreviated
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.
 

See Haiku Related form Links.

My example

anxious dog
fetches walking leash
daddy sighs

© Lawrencealot – November 9, 2014

American 767 poetry form

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American 767
Created by Dennis L. Dean; rules: syllable count 7,6,7 and must have a bug in it.

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

Many Thanks to Christina R Jussaume for her work on the Poetry Styles site.

 
 

Specifications restated:

The form is:
A poem of 3 lines
Syllabic: 7/6/7
Meter or Rhyme not required
Formulaic: Must mention some type of bug.

My example

What Bugs You? (American 767)

While a beetle is a bug
and thus can irritate,
it’s arachnids that I hate.

© Lawrencealot – October 4, 2014

Ae Freslighe poetry form

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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

Acronet poetry form

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Poetry Styles is a website that briefly explains the how to of many classic verse forms and includes some invented forms that appear to have originated within its community of poets, especially the webmaster Christina Jussaume. Several of Christina’s invented forms have some spiritual feature. I have found some of these forms on other sites. I also include them here.

  • The Acronet is an invented verse form that appears to be a combination Acrostic and Nonet created by Patricia A Farnswort-Simpson in 2008.

    The Acronet is:

    • a poem in 18 lines made up of 2 nine line stanzas.

    • syllabic, 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 syllables per line.

    • rhymed at the discretion of the poet.

    • an acrostic, the first letter of each line when read vertically spells out a phrase.

 

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/2192-invented-forms-from-poetry-styles/

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

Acronet

This form was created by Patricia A Farnsworth-Simpson on 08/19/08. It is an Acrostic with a reversed Nonet, then an Acrostic with Nonet second.

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

It seems that the community has adopted the first 9 lines from the specifications above judging by a recent online contest. Here is one of the submissions:

kissing my silken white beautiful
In the clouds falling rose petals
Softly in washed emotions
Sparkles colour the air
Endless my feelings
Delightful rose
Your lips beg
Open
Up

Pasted from <http://www.fanstory.com/displaystory.jsp?id=632215>
 July 2013

My Example

Adoringly Addictive (Acronet)

Adoringly Addictive

An apparition on the prarie
Drew me into a wondrous world
Only I could seem to see
Restless and enticing
Images of women
Near and calling
God,she so
Looked like
You.

And
Daily
Duties I
Impatiently
Complete to get me
Through the day until your
Image, a quite translucent
Vision presents itself before
Evening falls. For this each day, I live.

© Lawrencealot – October 3, 2014