Tag Archives: Roethicle

Wreathed and Unwreathed Quatrain

By | | ,
Comments Off on Wreathed and Unwreathed Quatrain

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Herbert was born into a wealthy artistic family in Wales and later was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge and was unpublished until after his death.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.

Wreathed and Unwreathed Octave

By | | ,
Comments Off on 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

Mathnawi

By | | ,
Comments Off on Mathnawi

The following description is reposted with permission from The Poets Garret, with thanks to Ryter Roethicle and Kathy Anderson.

Mathnawi

Mathnawi or Masnavi is normally poetry written in rhyming couplets. It is believed it emerged from an Iranian form around the 4th – 10th century, and the name is Persian and is not Arabic as some claim. The subject is usually heroic, romantic, or religious. Some Persian Mathnawi are especially significant in Sufism, Rumi’s Mathnawi-i-Ma’nawi is an outstanding example.

Most Persian Mathnawi are normally eleven (11) syllables, occasionally ten (10). There is no limit to the number of couplets. It has a rhyme scheme a. a.. b. b.. c. c. etc as shown in the following example:

Nature

Each and every plant that pushes forth new leaves
Is well aware of the life that it conceives

Richly blossoming forth its symbolic scenes
That helps to procreate and pass on its genes

So reliant on symbiosis for the key
It needs the help of creatures like worker bees

And all the other creatures that pass on seed
Those creatures fertilize each plant and weed

And as the seasons each year wax and wane
With time we see one year’s loss is another’s gain

We discover that Nature balances out with time
Making certain that nothing can e’re out-climb

All things are equal with Nature we must learn
And a balanced life must be our main concern.

Ryter Roethicle

Persian poetry also influenced other nations and whilst Turkish poetry also developed it was slightly later and influenced by Persian poetry and was popular in Turkey until the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Early Urdu Mathnawi was at first religious in nature, but because of Persian influence included romance, and adventure and even secular stories.

Arabic Mathnawi (Also called Muzdawidj) has one major difference in that it is presented as a triplet; a. a. a. / b. b. b. / c. c. c.. pattern, rather than a couplet shown previously.

Gone

It went to my head what you said yesterday
And again the thoughts burn yet become doubts play
For whenever hearts are involved I must pray.

How goes these whispers into the heavenlies
To evoke imaginative displays, please
Me as much as the cello with bow glories.

Charms take me away as do the words we speak,
When there are clouds in our eyes they tend to leak
For far gone days and flung desires bespeak.

Kathy Anderson

 

 

My Examples

Form: Mathnawi

Enough With the Snow (Persian)

‘Twas frigid, icy, wet and damnably cold
and by now, I’ll bet you know, it’s getting old.
One dismal tidbit hidden in winter facts
is the rise in shovel sponsored heart-attacks.

© Lawrencealot – February 21, 2015

OK, Let it Snow (Arabic)

I refuse to be among the number dead.
I’ll hire teenage boys to do the work instead
‘cus I’m a codger who’s learned to use my head.

© Lawrencealot – February 21, 2015