Tag Archives: quatrains

Trichain

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The Trichain is a poetry form created by Lisa La Grange, writing on Allpoetry.com.

A Trichain is:

  • Stanzaic: Consisting of 3 or more quatrains.
  • Metered: Each quatrain consists of 3 lines of iambic tetrameter and one line of iambic trimeter.
  • Rhyme Scheme: aaab cccb dddb …

La Grange’s Example

La Grange’s Example

Form: Trichain

Beautiful Mystery

At times the heart is plagued by pains
that bind like cold corroding chains;
it seems the torment never wanes
and nothing brings respite.

But then amidst oppressive fears
and cold depression’s streaming tears,
the mystery of love appears,
exuding dulcet light.

And then the chains of grief and woe,
are melted by its crimson glow
and misery is forced to go;
defeated by delight.

For love obliterates the gloom
of shadows that appear to loom.
They fade in beauty’s brilliant bloom
as flames of hope ignite.

My Example

Form: Trichain

The Girl and the Toad

While down a rustic path I strode
I chanced upon a tuckered toad,
who’d stopped still sitting in the road,
which seemed a dangerous place.

He let me take him in my hand
and when I spoke, it was unplanned;
I did not think he’d understand
although that seemed the case.

Within my head I heard a sound,
a mellow voice that did confound;
the toad, the only one around
was staring at my face.

“You are as pretty as they come
so sitting here was not so dumb,
If you will kiss me I’ll become
a prince with charm and grace.”

© Lawrencealot – July 5, 2015

Visual Template

Wreathed and Unwreathed Quatrain

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

Wreathed and Unwreathed Quatrains

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Herbert was born into a wealthy artistic family in Wales and later was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge and was unpublished until after his death.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 quatrain with a rhyme scheme of:

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

Here is an example of that form by George Herbert: 

A Wreath

A wreathed garland of deserved praise, 
Of praise deserved, unto thee I give, 
I give to thee, who knowest all my wayes, 
My crooked winding wayes, wherein I live, 

Wherein I die, not live : for life is straight, 
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee, 
To thee, who art more farre above deceit, 
Then deceit seems above simplicitie. 

Give me simplicitie, that I may live, 
So live and like, that I may know thy wayes, 
Know them and practise them : then shall I give 
For this poore wreath, give thee a crown of praise.

George Herbert (1593 – 1633)

Unwreathed Poetry

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

Wreath Quatrain

You are all alone and the future’s looking bleak
But will that bleakness last until the dawn
Pray before dawn your love again will speak.
What good is luck when your lover has gone

Ryter Roethicle

 

My Example

Form: Wreathed Quatrain
Rhyme Scheme: a(a/b)(b/a)(a/b)

Rain’s Glow

How sweet it was to look below
and view the show below the clouds.
The multi-colored shrouds I know
was heaven’s glow to please vast crowds.

How fortunate, I thought was I
having a chance to fly above
prism hues of what must apply
when fairies paint the sky with love.

A refraction of each photon
off drop impinged upon, now spray
colors everyway from dawn
until the moisture’s dried away.

© Lawrencealot – March 1, 2015

Visual Template

Note: Although the template is for an eight syllable poem, this is not a mandated requirement.

Trisect

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The following desription is reposted with permission from Form and Formlessness, with thanks to Erin A. Thomas, who also writes on Allpoetry as Zahhar.

My 1st trisect poem. The trisect is my own semantically complex poetic form which I will use to help me with developing my use of depictive language.

E merge nce


Fortress

walls of paper kept the world at bay
cubes of indistinction none would see
where settled there within a watcher peered

the dusty brown a perfect camouflage
propped against a wall or by a hedge
passed a thousand times by reckless feet

corrugated fibers held the wind
so that the space inside was made to form
a child’s island haven from the storm

sometimes it was a spaceship among the stars
sometimes a moon-base on a barren scape
sometimes a roving tank all battle-scarred
but always it provided safe escape


Goliath

shaped from molten vats of ore
molded by a burning greed
riveted with violent force
pieces merge to fill a need

manifest from heavy silence
oils surge and slowly drip
uncertainty across the roads

power charges through its frame
explosions channeled in its chest
to serve a senseless master’s will

tires grind an alley’s dirt
shadows steer a ghostly wheel
the phantom grill athirst for blood


Impact

black lightning strikes the living clay
evaporating life from every limb
suspending consciousness alone
void of breath yet interfused with fear

tires spin throughout the dark
an engine roars above a twisted neck
inches from a lifeless face
psychic tethers anchored in vibration

a heedless monster lumbers back
the shelter shattered open like a nest
blood resumes its former course
and wild bones reanimate the flesh

a figure stands and staggers numb with pain
screams and scampers filled with terror
headlights rear and fade away
a child’s bones left fractured like his mind


The first segment focuses on cardboard. I used to create cardboard forts when I was a child—sometimes very elaborate—and hang out in them all day long. Some of them would be portable, and some would be built in vacant lots or alleyways blocks or miles from home. They were always very well camouflaged, so my little hideout would remain my little hideout. The portable ones I’d often setup at the edge of a busy parking lot, made to look like a pile of scrap cardboard, where I’d hang out and just watch people without them knowing. These simple forts were a safe haven for me, a private place to go and be away from troubles and worries. And I had my share.

The second segment focuses on the automobile, the car. I remember reading up on their manufacturing process and design, and the primary materials used in their construction, before starting this segment.

The third segment focuses on a little mishap I had in one of those cardboard forts as a 14 year old, which involved a car. It was in an alleyway a few blocks from home. City blocks. Los Angeles City blocks. About a mile away at least. I had some big fight with my mother that day and decided I’d just have my own space that night in a cardboard fort I and a friend had built a day or two before. It was a beautiful fort, with four separate compartments, each of which were big enough to lay out flat in. The whole thing was masterfully camouflaged with various sorts of debris from the area, including dead palm branches and branches of other sorts. In the end it looked like a slash pile, just a bunch of branches and other random materials tossed into a pile—but it was hollow, and there were access points.

That night as I slept a car slammed into the fort and ran over my right arm, shoulder, and neck, breaking the upper arm longways from near the elbow across to the top near the ball socket, and blew a piece out of the ball socket itself. My neck was severely sprained—which is of course a miracle. It was possible to make out the tire treads on my throat. How I happened to be aligned such that the tire didn’t snap my head one way and pop my skull off the spine like a bottle opener I have no idea.

This was my first NDE. I have no way to prove it, but I just know. I know what I experienced, and I was dead for at least a moment—and a moment is long enough to be dead. Sometime I’ll dedicate some poetry and discussion to that experience. But as I “returned”, after the car had somehow managed to back up off me without running over my neck a second time, I sprang up in a panic, and it came toward me again, then stopped, then backed all the way down the alley and around the far corner, as if in a mad rush to escape affiliation with the mishap. I’ll never forget the sight of those headlights.

I was near a series of hotels. And each time I knocked, with my left arm since right wouldn’t respond, the owners would come to the door and I’d ask for help and they’d slam the door on me. It sucked. In this manner I ended up up making my way half a mile to an apartment complex my mom had lived in a year or so before, where some people knew me, and an ambulance was called.

Trian Rannaigechta Moire

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

Trian Rannaigechta Moire is a dan direach meter of ancient Celtic or Irish Verse Forms written in short lines with consonant rhyme, cywddydd (harmony of sound) and dunadh (beginning and ending the poem with the same word, syllable or phrase.

The elements of the Trian Rannaigechta Moire are:

  1. stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains,
  2. each line has 4 syllables.
  3. rhymed xaba xcdc etc. The end words of all lines consonate.
  4. written with aicill rhyme when the end word of L3 is a 2 syllable word. The 2 syllable end word of L3 is only a trigger for the aicill rhyme. It is not mandatory that any line end with a 2 syllable word.
    x x x x
    x x x a
    x x (x b) (when end word is 2 syllables, the b rhyme is repeated internally in L4)
    x b x a

    x x x x
    x x x c
    x x x d (note: single syllable end word, d rhyme is not repeated internally in L4)
    x x x c

    In the following poem all of the criteria is met except to consonate all of the end words of each quatrain. We have to remember the poem always comes first before the traditional form criteria and it probably would have been easier to consonate the end words if written in the original Gaelic. Something we often forget about emulating verse forms from different cultures and languages, the criteria doesn’t always easily translate into English.

    Trickster Time by Barbara Hartman

    Spring storm dumps snow,
    glazes green clumps,
    bends bows low
    to grow huge humps.

    March makes mischief:
    tricksters take wing
    practicing pranks
    on silly Spring.

My Example

Form: Trian Rannaigechta Moire

Only Gold

Vain little ride
on mountain road
could not get rid
of fears that rode.

We paid our dues-
those cold harsh days
passed bucks and does;
searched in a daze.

We stopped the van,
found a gold vein,
but lost my dog;
we’d searched in vain.

© Lawrencealot – February 4, 2015

This poet abandoned consonance in the penultimate line for sake of a powerful closing couplet, and an unspoken tribute to the difficulties handled by the ancient Celtics.

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Bay Chu

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

Tho Bay Chu or Seven Word Poetry [Vietnamese] is written with seemingly more flexible tonal pattern than most Viet verse with the exception of when an end word is flat, the 3rd word must be sharp and when the end word is sharp, the 3rd word in the line must be flat. The elements of the Tho Bay Chu are:

  1. stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains.
  2. measured by number of words, 7 words per line.
  3. rhymed, tonal rhyme appears to be at the discretion of the poet except if and end word is flat, the 3rd word of the line must be sharp or if the end word is sharp, the 3rd word of the line must be flat. End rhyme aaxa bbxb etc. or xaxa xbxb etc.

Note: I cannot begin to write one of these, because the concepts of a tonal flat or sharp is not within my grasp, even though I can find audio samples on Wikipedia.

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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Kloon

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Thai Poetry

• The Kloon or Klon (meaning simple verse) is sometimes known as the “true Thai poetic form”. It is the basic and most common Thai verse written with simple subjects and simple words.

The Kloon is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains
○ syllabic, 4 to 8 syllables per line.
○ composed with each line made up of 2 to 3 phrases.
○ rhymed with an intricate rhyme pattern. The internal rhyme can be optional or reduced. The tone is looser than most Thai forms but it the end syllable of each line is usually rising which is in sync with most Western verse of iambic meter.

x x a x a x a b
x x b x b x x c
x x x x x x x c
x x c x c x x d
x x d x d x a e
x x e x e x x f
x x x x x x x f
x x f x f x x g

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

Cross rhyme: When the end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the next line.
Internal rhyme: Rhyming within a line.
Interlaced rhyme: A word in the middle of one line rhymes with a word in the middle of another.

My Example

Form: Kloon

Three Types of Rhyme

If I’m to rhyme inside and out
I’ll scout about before I start
for rhymes to fit into my art.
Apart from smartness, I’ll need wit.

Omit unfit words which outrage
as staged on page for rhyme alone.
When you are done you can’t disown
what’s shown by tone and rhythm here.

© Lawrencealot – January 27, 2015

Visual Template

Since one can exercise options with the internal rhyme in this poem, I moved the rhyming columns to fit iambic meter. One could just as well use the designated
columns with trochaic.

Séadna Mheadhanach

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Séadna mheadhanach is:
○ the same as the Séadna.
○ except the 1st and 3rd lines of the quatrain are 3 syllable words and the 2nd and 4th lines are 2 syllable words.

x x x x x (x x a)
x a x x x (x b)
x x x b x (x x c)
x b x c x (x b)

Syllabic Silliness
by Judi Van Gorder

When writing verse be attendant,
confidant in the stillness
with syllable count dependant,
drill and chant shunning shrillness.

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


My Example

Form: Séadna Mheadhanach

2nd Childhood

Observe how gramps does emulate
what kids create in youthful
wonder at almost everything.
He thinks that time is fruitful.
That youth he’d yearn to peculate
this late in lifetime’s reserve
because there’s something wonderful
in whatever they observe.

© Lawrencealot – January 21, 2015

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Choriambic dactylic fusion

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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

Rannaicheacht Mhor Gairit

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Rannaicheacht Mhor Gairit (great versification with “clipped” or shortened line) is:
• written in any number of quatrains.
• syllabic 3-7-7-7.
• alliterated, 2 word alliteration in each line.
• rhymed, rhyme scheme aaba ccdc etc.
• if L3 ends in a 2 syllable word, aicill rhyme is employed and the end word of L3 rhymes internally in L4.

x x a
x x x x x x a
x x x x x (x b)
x x b x x x a

x x c
x x x x x x c
x x x x x (x d)
x x d x x x c
Squatters by Barbara Hartman
Prairie dogs
carry on shrill dialogues
outside apartment housing
— grumpy, grousing demagogues.
They moved in
last summer with all their kin,
dug tunnels in our pasture
— cool, cocksure, they always win.
All agog,
hungry rodents eat like hogs,
while poor farmers rue the day
God created prairie dogs.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1170#mhorgairit
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example
Puppy Poop (Rannaicheacht Mhor Gairit)
Doggy doo
is mom-speak for piles of poo.
Dad deems it be done outside.
Dignified dogs take that view.
Big is bad
when scooping poop, so said dad.
The pups chew shoes I confess.
Their scat’s less and that’s not sad.
© Lawrencealot – January 8, 2015
Visual template

Rannaicheacht Mhor Gairit