Tag Archives: tetrameter

The Donne

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The Donne is named for the English Poet, John Donne (1573-1631) patterned after his A Hymn to God the Father. John Donne was known as a metaphysical poet and his poetic style directly influenced the poetry of the 16th century.
The Donne is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of sixains.
• metered, L1 through L4 are pentameter, L5 tetrameter and L6 is dimeter.
• rhymed, with an alternating rhyme scheme ababab. The rhyme scheme maintains the same 2 rhymes throughout the poem ababab ababab etc.
Hymn to God the Father by John Donne (first stanza)
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
— Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
— And do run still, though still I do deplore?
—— When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
—————- For I have more.
Done Donne by Rex Allen Brewer
How can I find a way to write like Donne,
When comes the fun, who cracks the door?
My words are poor, like weeds without the sun.
I can’t find rhyme or pun, I am a bore.
I walk the floor, what have I won?
Foul done, no score.
Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the find PMO resource.
My example poem
Look It in the Mouth (The Donne)
ILook It in the Mouth
Look It in the Mouth (The Donne)
I’ve got a chance where I might win a horse.
It was purchased for me by Johnny Black.
I was appreciative, and glad of course
though I’ve not been upon a horses back.
It’s likely something I’ll endorse
though I know jack.
Then searching for a proper clothing souce
for boots and buckle, hat and clothes I lack
I found with that I’d only be midcourse.
I’d need a saddle and the horses tack.
Don’t let me win! I’ve such remorse
please take it back.
© Lawrencealot – June 22, 2014
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The Donne

The Dobson

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The Dobson is named for Henry Austin Dobson (1840-1921), 19th century English poet, patterned from his The Garden Song.  Dobson was respected in his time for his use of French forms especially his mastery of the Triolet.

The Dobson is:

  • stanzaic, written in any number of sixains made up of 3 rhymed couplets.
  • metered, most often written in tetrameter.
  • rhymed, rhyme scheme aabbcc ddeeff etc.

A Garden Song by Henry Austin Dobson
HERE in this sequester’d close
Bloom the hyacinth and rose,
Here beside the modest stock
Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;
Here, without a pang, one sees
Ranks, conditions, and degrees.
All the seasons run their race
In this quiet resting place,
Peach and apricot and fig
Here will ripen and grow big;
Here is store and overplus,–
More had not Alcinoüs!
Here, in alleys cool and green,
Far ahead the thrush is seen;
Here along the soutern wall
Keeps the bee his festival;
All is quiet else–afar
Sounds of toil and turmoil are.
Here be shadows large and long;
Here be spaces meet for song;
Grant, O garden-god, that I,
Now that none profane is nigh,–
Now that mood and moment please,–
Find the fair Pierides!
Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the fine resource above.

My Example poem
Banana Peels (The Dobson)
Banana Peels
Bothersome banana peels
Getting underneath my heels
Possibly an oversight
or a trick that’s not polite.
Comics slide on them for fun,
clowns as well are not outdone.
© Lawrencealot – June 22, 2014
Visual Template
The Dobson

The Chesterson

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This is a poetry form used by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) better known as G.K. Chesterton, was an English writer,lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist. He used it to write the epic: The Ballad of the White Horse.
The Chesterson
Stanzaic: Any number of sestets.
Metered: The 2nd and 6th line are Iambic trimeter, the rest iambic tetrameter.
Rhymed: abaaab
My example poem
The Night I Didn’t Go to Jail (The Chesterton)
Midnight adventures; too much drink
had landed me in jail
more often than I’d like to think.
Tonight you found me on the brink
and posited that I re-think.
You had no cash for bail.
“That drink is just a substitute
for being with a girl.
Although I’m just a prostitute
you told me that you thought I’m cute.
The cops can never prosecute
if freely we do whirl.”
I’ve never quite been eighty-sixed
in such a pleasant way.
I briefly found myself transfixed
my mind was numb, my feelings mixed,
until to mine, her lips affixed;
now everything’s okay.
© Lawrencealot – June 20, 2014
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The Chesterson

Anaduo

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This is an invented form created by Lisa La Grange of Allpoetry.com.
It is Stanzaic, composed of any number of sestets
It is Syllalbic 11/11/8/11/11/8
Meter: All lines are acephalous* anapestic
              The long lines are anapestic tetrameter
              The short lines are anapestic trimeter
Rhyme Scheme:  aabccb
*Acephalous = headless, lacking its first syllable
Example Poem:
Chased by a Cloud     (Anaduo)
Below the horizon, beneath where I stand
the streets of a city lie quilting the land.
It’s there that I work and I live.
I set out today, with no purposeful aim
My nose led my feet; up the mountain I came
for nature has beauty to give.
Just barely, below me the sounds I can hear
of traffic and people who don’t know I’m here.
I view what’s so rarely allowed.
I’ve climbed here before and I’ve stayed overnight
but never been treated to quite such a sight.
I’m proud to be chased by a cloud.
© Lawrencealot – January 30, 2014
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Trifrain

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This is a form created by Lisa LaGrange on Allpoetry.com
It is Stanzic, consisting of any number of quatrains.
It is isosyllabic, eight syllables per line.
It is metered, generally iambic tetameter, but not limited thereto.
It has a repetition (Refrain) requirement
Except for the refrain, which is the first 4 syllable of line one, repeated twice as line 4, it requires mono-rhyme.
Rhyme pattern: aaaR 
Note: Added 2/23/2014:
The Trifrain is a new form that I added to this blog in January 2014, which is so very like a Monotetra (created in 2003), that I have been contacted with the following message: I think you should be careful when giving credit to a poet for creating a poetic form. You documented that Lisa LaGrange created a new form called a “Trifrain”. She now insists that it’s her form when in actuality it’s nothing more than a modified Monotetra created years ago by: Michael Walker.
I agree with the statement that is it nothing more than a modified Monotetra, but it is just that – modified.  It adds the REQUIREMENT of a REFRAIN (While dropping the requirement of MONO-RHYME.)
Lisa could well have simply credited her writing as  such a modification, without giving it a name.  But now we have a label we can refer to if we wish to write this style.
My dilemma, is that I cannot unilaterally decide that the new requirements are insufficient to allow a new name.  Many sonnet forms were invented with merely a change of rhyme pattern, etc…
But I definitely can and will give credit to the inspiring poet upon whose shoulders one is standing.
 
Example poem:
 
Nap Time     (Trifrain)
 
I need a nap to clear my head 
that happens when I go to bed 
to sleep instead, well just instead. 
I need a nap.  I need a nap. 
 
My tasks await, I can’t delay 
my puppy sez it’s time to play 
my wife wants barking far a way. 
My tasks await.  My tasks await. 
 
I’ll get things done I’ll catch up soon 
I’ll still have all this afternoon 
but with my muse I must commune. 
I’ll get things done. I’ll get things done. 
 
My head is clear.  I took a nap 
with puppy cuddled in my lap 
I’m better now, My nap’s a wrap. 
My head is clear.  My head is clear. 
 
© Lawrencealot – January 30, 2014
 
Visual Template:
This template shows iambic tetrameter.
 
 

Domino Ryme

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  • Domino Rhyme  is a very clever innovation of Bob Newman which can be found at his site as well as many others on the internet. Much like a slinky, rhymes tumble from stanza to stanza, it is something he calls “remote rhyming”.The Domino Rhyme is:
    • stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains.
    • metered, written in a loose tetrameter. Lines should be same length.
    • rhymed. L2 and L3 of the first stanza rhyme with L1 and L4 of the next stanza and so on down until the last stanza when L2 and L3 rhyme with L1 and L4 of the first stanza. abcd befc eghf gijh … iadj.
 Thanks to Judi Van Gorder of PMO.
Domino rhyme
A poem in domino rhyme is written in four-line stanzas, within which there are no rhymes at all. However, every line rhymes with a line in another stanza. Specifically, lines 2 and 3 of each stanza rhyme with lines 1 and 4 respectively of the next stanza. The final stanza completes the loop, its lines 2 and 3 rhyming with lines 1 and 4 of the first stanza.
Here are the opening few stanzas of a poem written in this form:
from Inspiration Fails
They don’t come to me here, the girls
My self-restraint should draw. Who knows
What force might motivate them; why
Most other hermits pack them in.
My fount of inspiration flows
Most fecund when the buckie ears
Of buxom women spur it onward.
One tender bite: I versify
In buckets. But it’s many years
Since last I penned a plangent ode.
My old kerchief still bears the knot
I tied then. Why? Remembering’s hard,
For Lethe’s bitter wind has blowed,
Or current swept my thoughts away.
Some lesser poet conjured it –
He’ll be remembered; I, forgot.
This is the sequel to a poem called Inspiration Falls, and it carries on for quite a lot longer.
Why Domino rhyme?
The idea is to rhyme without the reader consciously noticing, because the rhymes are unusually far apart – what I call “remote rhyming”. With the poem laid out as above, the pattern is relatively easy to spot – but remove the gaps between the stanzas, and the reader is likely to be satisfyingly baffled.
I call this particular rhyming scheme “domino rhyme” for two reasons. First, because the rhymes ripple through the poem like toppling dominoes. Second, because one of the most popular domino games is called Fives and Threes (or Threes and Fives!) and here pairs of rhyming lines are always either five or three lines apart.
Note for Logophiles
In the example above, each stanza is built around an obscure word which does not actually appear in the poem. (This is not an essential part of the verse form!) The words are: agapetae early churchwomen who lived with celibate men; gynotikolobomassophile one who likes to nibble women’s earlobes; quipu mnemonic knots in ancient Peru; castrophrenia: the belief that enemies are stealing ones thoughts.
Similar forms
I only know of one other verse form in which every line rhymes, but all the rhymes are external. This is rimas dissolutas. 
 Thanks to Bob Newman.
 
My Example Poem
Humility Earned     (Domino Rhyme)
She does not think less of herself
for acts she did when she was young
The scars she has are not displayed
invoked, or played upon at all.
New melodies are being sung
by youngsters facing tempting threats.
She works with them in song and verse
her voice each morning an aubade.
She’s risen above her regrets,
and frets not at all ’bout her past
She harvests beauty floating by,
considers grumpiness a curse.
No opportunity’s your last
mistakes like read books on a shelf
are simply signposts for us all
take note, move on, spread wings, and fly.
© Lawrencealot – December 31, 2013
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Sicilian Sestet

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Sicilian Sestet
Possessing similar origins, as the Italian Sestet, 
the Sicilian sestet had no set meter, but the 
anglicised version uses Iambic tetrameter or pentameter.
The rhyme pattern is as follows; ababab
Example Poem
Write a Sicilian Sestet
Sicilian sestets have most simple rhyme. 
The metric foot can be both four and five,
(but not at once), just one poem at a time. 
Here pentameter iambs are alive. 
Don’t strain yourself in finding rhyme like I’m. 
Just think ahead and then you can survive. 
© Lawrencealot – July 25, 2012
Visual Template
 

Amphion

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• Amphion, another 20th century American verse form invented as a teaching tool. It alternates tetrameter lines with dimeter lines, created byViola Berg.The Amphion is:
○ a poem of 10 lines.
○ metered, tetrameter lines alternate with sets of rhymed dimeter couplets.
○ Rhymed, rhyme scheme  abbaccdeed
Super Bowl Sunday by Judi Van Gorder
A day of football at its end,
the bowls of chips
and gooey dips.
Emotions now are on the mend
the ups and downs
the fan base clowns.
The black and gold have got the win,
the players crow,
the losers go
their loss is carried on the chin.
Pasted from
A great thanks to Judi Van Gorder for making PMO a premier resource.
Syllabic 8/4/4/8/4/4/8/4/4
Example Poem
Bar Bully Ballet (Amphion)
He sits there staring at his drink.
his life is bad
and he’s so sad
A bully entered– what’d ya think?
He grabbed the glass
He’s such an ass–
The sad guy cries he is so blue.
“Damn all’s gone wrong,
“Twas my swan song–
Then this ass drank my poisoned brew! ”
© Lawrencealot -November 26,2013
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amphion

San Gabriel Refrain

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Created by Lawrence R. Eberhart, aka Lawrencealot on Allpoetry, and named by  Doubletake on  Allpoetry….He said, “As to the name: it’s a stretch… But the repeated uneven line lengths are vaguely reminiscent of the profile of a mountain range. How about “San Gabriel Refrain”?
This form was borne of an appreciation for the ever increasingly popular Trijan Refrain created by Jan Turner. It is a little longer giving room for weightier subjects.
Like the Trijan Refrain is has three stanzas*, each having a two line refrain. Unlike the TR, it has no requirement that the first line be repeated, and the poet may choose to take his refrain from any contiguous part of either lines 1, 3, or 5.
This was revised on November 9th, 2013 to allow any number of stanzas.
There must be a refrain in both lines 7 and 8, it may be a line repeated from any of the source lines, or it may be taken from separate lines (if you have taken care to make the proper syllable rhyme).
Latest REVISON:   The REFRAINS may be contiguous syllables taken from any place in the source lines.
There shall be 6 syllables for the pentameter  version and 4 syllables for the tetrameter version.
The refrain may be repeated from just one line as in the Trijan Refrain, or it may, as in the example below be taken from any of the mandated lines.
The stanzas are syllabic: 10/8/10/8/10/10/6/6/10/10 for what I’ll call the pentameter version
and 8/6/8/6/8/8/4/4/8/8 for what I’ll call the tetrameter version .
with rhyme scheme ababccddee.
A single poem has any number of stanzas.
Any consistent meter is acceptable.
Specifications last changed on November 9 , 2013 all with the idea of increasing poets’ discretion and opportunity for creativity.
 
Example Poem
 
Cognitive Continuum (San Gabriel Refrain)
 
If we should disagree- I’m obstinate! 
You’re such a silly guy you know 
it’s wrong to pose that you are adamant 
to think that some thing must be so. 
Still, something sure must be, and working well. 
But what it is at this time we can’t tell. 
If we should disagree 
Still, something sure must be. 
But man when saying “must” is seldom right. 
Five thousand churches, all they do is fight. 
 
Now science has become so self possessed, 
constrained by those who’ve made their name, 
whose right to truth is often self-professed
and bars newcomers from their game. 
A race to skim the scum from grantors pond 
by bringing forth results of which they’re fond. 
Now science has become 
A race to skim the scum 
To publish or to perish is the song. 
and there is no real cost to get it wrong. 
 
So if the beads and cross have so far failed, 
and science is so often wrong 
with models at a loss- results derailed 
(at best just guessing, all along.)
It seems none have the right now to insist 
they know for certain what others have missed. 
So if the beads and cross 
with models at a loss 
all leave a little room for cogent doubt 
I can see options and not feel left out. 
 
© Lawrencealot – October 22,2013
Visual Template(Showing iambic pentameter version)
       and giving examples of ways in which the refrain lines might be populated.
Originally named Longer Refrain…
 
 

Rondel

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A rondel is a verse form originating in French lyrical poetry, later used in the verse of other languages as well, such as English and Romanian. It is a variation of the rondeau consisting of two quatrains followed by a quintet (13 lines total) or a sestet (14 lines total). The rondel was invented in the 14th century, and is arguably better suited to the French language than to English. It is not to be confused with the roundel, a similar verse form with repeating refrain.
The first two lines of the first stanza are refrains, repeating as the last two lines of the second stanza and the third stanza. (Alternately, only the first line is repeated at the end of the final stanza). For instance, if A and B are the refrains, a rondel will have a rhyme scheme of ABba abAB abbaA(B)
The meter is open, but typically has eight syllables.
A French form consisting of 13 lines: two quatrains and a quintet,**
rhyming as follows: ABba abAB abbaA. The capital letters are the refrains, or repeats.
 
**Author’s note or two quatrains and a SESTET if the two refrain option is chosen.
 
Visual Template  –  Tetrameter Option