Tag Archives: tercet

Tho Tam 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 Tam Chu or Eight Word Poetry [Vietnamese] appears to be more flexible in stanza length as well as tonal and end rhyme. The rhyme schemes are patterns I found in actual poems. It appears to me that as long as there is rhyme, it probably doesn’t matter what the pattern is.  The elements of the Tho Tam Chu are:

  1. stanzaic, written in any number of either tercets, quatrains or septets.
  2. measured by the number of words in the line, 8 words per line.
  3. rhymed,
  4. tonal rhyme is flexible except, if the end word is sharp then the 3rd word is also sharp and words 5 and 6 are flat. Conversely, if the end word is flat then the 3rd word is also flat and the 5th and 6th words are sharp.
  5. end rhyme
  6. when written in tercets
    w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w a b
    w w w w b w w b
  7. when written in quatrains is:
    w w w w w w w w     or    w w w w w w w w
    w w w w w w w a             w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w w            w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w a             w w w w w w w w
  8. when written as a septet
    w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w a
    w w w w w w w b
    w w w w w w w b
    w w w w w w w w

Note: Whereas with the Bay Chu, I copped out because I had no notion of the tonal requirement, I was emboldened here by Judi’s observation that tonal rhyme was flexible. I therefore took the liberty to equate the Vietnamese flat and sharp sounds to the English long and short sounds, and have treated the words in positions 3,5,6 and 8 accordingly.

From Wikipedia

English vowels are sometimes split into “long” and “short” vowels along lines different from the linguistic differentiation. Traditionally, the vowels /eɪ iː aɪ oʊ juː/ (as in bait beat bite boat bute) are said to be the “long” counterparts of the vowels /æ ɛ ɪ ɒ ʌ/ (as in bat bet bit bot but) which are said to be “short”. This terminology reflects their pronunciation before the Great Vowel Shift.

Traditional English phonics teaching, at the preschool to first grade level, often used the term “long vowel” for any pronunciation that might result from the addition of a silent E(e.g., like) or other vowel letter as follows:

Letter “Short” “Long” Example
A a /æ/ /eɪ/ mat / mate
E e /ɛ/ /iː/ pet / Pete
I i /ɪ/ /aɪ/ twin / twine
O o /ɒ/ /oʊ/ not / note
U u /ʌ/ /juː/ cub / cube
A mnemonic was that each vowel’s long sound was its name.
In Middle English, the long vowels /iː, eː, ɛː, aː, ɔː, oː, uː/ were generally written i..e, e..e, ea, a..e, o..e, oo, u..e. With the Great Vowel Shift, they came to be pronounced /aɪ, iː, iː, eɪ, oʊ, uː, aʊ/. Because ea and oo are digraphs, they are not called long vowels today. Under French influence, the letter u was replaced with ou (or final ow), so it is no longer considered a long vowel either. Thus the so-called “long vowels” of Modern English are those vowels written with the help of a silent e.

Wikipedia: Traditional long and short vowels in English orthography

My Example

Form: Tho Tam Chu

Vietnam Poetry Didactic

If word three is long, expect to find
the words five and six not so aligned.
By word three, eight’s sound is now defined.
One must keep these rules within one’s mind.
That being done, then each line is fun,
a challenge yet, here I write this one.
An unrhymed line must still conform like so.

© Lawrencealot – January 31, 2015

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Zejel

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Zejel
The zejel is a Spanish form which my Spanish friends have not heard of. They tell me though that it is pronounced the-hell, with the stress on the second syllable. (How the hell do they know?)
My example in this form is about how men can’t help thinking about sex. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone, and get me a reputation as a male chauvinist pig. As I’m always saying, the opinions expressed in the poem are not necessarily those of the poet himself. (See also my Masefield parody.) 
I checked on the web how many times a day men are reputed to think about sex. The consensus seemed to be that it was about 200. The lowest figure came from the Ladies Home Journal, which said “4 or 5”. The highest came from the film Simply Irresistible, which says 278 – apparently it uses this as a running gag. (One site actually topped this with a claim of “every 8 seconds”, which works out at 450 times an hour, but I think that writer may have been shooting from the hip, as it were.)
Anyway, here’s the poem:
Proposition
Mostly, sex tops men’s agenda.
I’m not one to buck the trend – a
Red-blooded repeat offender.
Hurrying for the morning train,
Spirit not damped by teeming rain,
There’s only one thing on my brain:
All the time I think of gender.
At the office, deep in filing,
Boredom on frustration piling,
Even then, a woman smiling
Makes me feel all warm and tender.
Are you female and eighteen plus?
A good sport and adventurous?
We have a great deal to discuss.
Come back to my hacienda!
The first stanza, known as the mudanza, has three lines, rhyming aaa. All the other stanzas – as many of them as you like – have 4 lines, rhyming bbba, the a rhyme harking back to the first stanza. So the overall rhyming scheme for the poem is aaa/bbba/ccca/ddda/…
Colloquial language tends to be used, and 8-syllable lines are usual (though not obligatory), so that’s what I’ve used here. I have interpreted the term “8-syllable line” to mean “a line with 8 syllables”, and I suggest that you should do the same. However, in Spanish poetry syllable-counting works differently, and the term “8-syllable line” is liable to be interpreted as “a line in which the last stressed syllable is the seventh”; such a line might have 7 syllables, or 8, or 9, or even more. (I wonder whether the Spanish write haiku?
Pasted from <http://volecentral.co.uk/vf/zejel.htm>
Thanks to Bob Newman for his wonderful Volecentral resource site.
Example Poem
Toothless Smile      (Zejel)
The tortoise lived out on a heath
with only sage to hide beneath
his home he never could bequeath.
While I am taxed for my household
and pay and pay until I’m old,
and shall until I’m dead and cold
and I’m ensconced beneath a wreath.
My brilliant smile was once okay,
before my teeth all went away;
my progeny will have to say,
“He kept his house but lost his teeth.”
© Lawrencealot – April 16, 2014
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Shanzi

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In December 2005 Andreas Gripp,  of  London, Ontario announced a new form.   The Shanzi is written in 7 lines with breaks of 2, 2 and 3. The poem contains 31 syllables arranged in this manner: 4-5, 5-4, 4-4-5.   The first 2 lines introduce the image/subject; the next 2 lines amplify what is affected by the image/subject; the last 3 lines focus on a new image/subject that complement and provide a meditative conclusion. Shanzi may be titled.
 
Thanks To Reason for the info, here it is retated:
In December 2005 Andreas Gripp,  of  London, Ontario announced a new form.
 
This is a syllabic poem in seven lines  4/5 5/4 4/4/5
Unrhymed 
Lines 1 and 2   INTRODUCE the SUBECT
Lines 3 and 4   AMPLIFY what is affected by the image/subject.
Line 5 thru 7    Focus on NEW SUBJECT that complements and provides a meditative conclusion.
Shanzi may be Titled 
Example Poem 
Backyard in August 
In the backyard
apples all about 
rake and basket wait
under the tree 
some for the birds
some for neighbors
some for you and me. 
© Lawrencealot – August 20, 2012 
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Trinquint

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Triquint
Triquint, a poem form created by Sylvia A. Feeley, which consists of 3 verses, 5 lines each. Lines 3 and 4 of verse 1 (Refrain) repeat in verses 2 and 3. The syllable count for each stanza is 9, 7, 5, 3, 1 and has an aaAAb rhyme scheme.
Example:
Heartache
Words written in verses, they appeal.
Sung about in songs you feel.
Heartache, all to real.
Ne’er ideal.
Hears.
Emotions which are hard to conceal.
Feelings that are so surreal.
Heartache, all to real.
Ne’er ideal.
Tears.
Beliefs that if you were to reveal,
would cause pain too hard to heal.
Heartache, all to real.
Ne’er ideal.
Fears.
Copyright © 2008 Sylvia A. Feeley
A thanks to Shadow Poetry for this resource.
My Example
Union (Triquint)
How’d you happen to start loving me?
I speculate that maybe
reciprocity
sets us free.
How?
Each one supporting the other’s chi,
manifests duality;
reciprocity
sets us free.
now.
When two souls merge, their reality
makes strong singularity,
reciprocity
sets us free.
Wow!
© Lawrencealot – Dec. 8, 2013
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Than-Bauk

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Than-Bauk
The Than-Bauk is Burmese. It goes something like this:
A kind of verse
Some are worse than.
It’s terse, but rhymes.
Three lines, four syllables each. And the fourth, third and second syllables respectively all rhyme. It’s even shorter than a haiku, but a lot more structured. Traditionally, than-bauks are supposed to be witty and epigrammatic.
Than Bauk

In view of the Haikus popularity in the West, it’s surprising that the Than Bauk is not more popular. It consists of three lines of four syllables that should be witty. The nickname for this form of poetry, could be “Stairway”, because of the rhyme steps through the poem. This is the basic rhyme scheme:
O. O. O. a
O. O. a. O
O. a. O. b
You can see from this that it forms a descending step, and at this point it can be terminated. You have twelve syllables to work with, and it could be very hard work. It could be much easier if a longer poem were made. If this is the case, then the practice is that the last syllable of the third line starts the next descent as shown below:
O. O. O. a
O. O. a. O
O. a. O. b
O. O. b. O
O. b. O. c
O. O. c. O
O. c. O. d. etc.
Example Poem
The  sun is bright
while moonlight is
seen night and day.
© Lawrencealot – November 22, 2013

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Only Three lines are required, but if you wish to continue, the pattern follows.