Duni

Pathways for the Poet by Viola Berg (1977) is a book for and by educators. Classic poetic forms as well as many invented forms which appear to have been invented as teaching tools or exercizes for use in workshops or classrooms are included. Some of these invented forms I have found in use in internet poetry communities, a testament to their staying power. On this page I include the metric invented forms found there in which appear to be exclusive to the community of educators from whom Ms. Berg drew her support. I have yet to find these in any other source. …. Whether classroom exercise or sharpening your skill as a writer, some of these forms can be fun to play with.

• The Duni has a complicated metric pattern and includes a pivot or change of thought in L6.  Created by Mildred Dewey. 

The Duni is:
○ a heptastich, 7 line poem.
○ metered, 
L1 1 dactyl followed by 2 trochees and an Iamb 
L2 3 iambs
L3 a trochee followed by an anapest and 2 iambs
L4 3 iambs
L5 3 iambs
L6 4 iambs
L7 1 iamb, followed by an anapest and an iamb
○ composed with a pivot or change of thought in L6.
○ rhymed, rhyme scheme abcacba.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1199#dionol
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

Selective Perception Advised (Duni)

Paying attention makes lots of sense.
It’s socially astute.
Notice your wife’s nails or her French-braid
and she’ll take no offense.
But man, I’d be afraid
to note another’s wife is cute.
Observing that’s somewhat dense.

© Lawrencealot – September 9, 2014

Visual template

Duni

Cycle

Pathways for the Poet by Viola Berg (1977) is a book for and by educators. Classic poetic forms as well as many invented forms which appear to have been invented as teaching tools or exercizes for use in workshops or classrooms are included. Some of these invented forms I have found in use in internet poetry communities, a testament to their staying power. On this page I include the metric invented forms found there in which appear to be exclusive to the community of educators from whom Ms. Berg drew her support. I have yet to find these in any other source. I have included the syllabic invented forms on a separate page. Whether classroom exercise or sharpening your skill as a writer, some of these forms can be fun to play with.

• Cycle appears to be an exercise in meter and rhyme. This invented verse form was created by Paul Emile Miller.

The Cycle is:
○ stanzaic, written in 3 quatrains.
○ metric, L1 and L3 tetrameter made up of a trochee followed by a dactyl and 2 iambs; L1 and L3 often use feminine end words. L2 and L4 are iambic trimeter. “Pathways” description and example are in conflict, the description of meter here fits with the example poem.
○ rhymed, abab cbcb dbdb.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1199#dionol
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

Naturally Selected (Cycle)

Defunct vestigials are proof I reckon,
(denying dogma’s claims)
demonstrating clearly changes beckon,
in life’s ambiguous game.

Natures monologue denies we’re molded,
pre-cast, annealed in flame.
Mankind draws then repeats, hand un-folded –
survival’s life’s whole aim.

Limitations, norms, exceptions, changes
responding – not the same.
Bio plasma slowly rearranges,
without thought, overcame.

© Lawrencealot – September 4, 2014

Visual template

Cycle

Aeolic Ode

Aeolic Verse refers to meters commonly used in the lyrical works of Sappho and Alcaeus. Aeolis was the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor which included most of the Greek city-states and the Island of Lesbos in the 8th to 6th centuries BC, the Greek Dark Ages. Four classic meters are known from that culture, the Alcaic Stanza, the Sapphic Stanza, Glyconics (the basic form of Aeolics) and Hendecasyllabic Verse. The verse is quantitative, usually hendecasyllabic, employing 11 syllables and often includes an anceps, a quantitative metric foot that includes a syllable that could be interpreted either long or short. The meter helped set a tranquil or contemplative tone. Aeolic poetry.

• The Aeolic Ode is the earliest of the Odes, the product of an ancient Greek culture but I’ve found little descriptive information other than some quantitative scansion showing a similarity to the Adonic line of the Sapphic strophe. It is said to have a contemplative or tranquil tone.
• An asclepiad is one of the Aeolic meters attributed to Asclepiades of Samos. The aclepiad follows a particular metric pattern. It is built around the choriamb (metric pattern of LssL). The common example is a spondee followed by 2 choriambs and an iamb. LL LssL LssL sL, (L = long syllable, s = short syllable) the meter was used by Horace and others in Latin.

An example in English is: In Due Season by WH Auden
Springtime, Summer and Fall: days to behold a world
Antecedent to our knowing, where flowers think
Theirs concretely in scent-colors and beasts, the same
Age all over, pursue dumb horizontal lives.
On one level of conduct and so cannot be
Secretary to man’s plot to become divine.
Lodged in all is a set metronome: thus, in May
Bird-babes, still in the egg, click to each other “Hatch!”;
June-struck cuckoos go off pitch when obese July
Turns earth’s heating up; unknotting their poisoned ropes.
Vipers move into play; warmed by October’s nip,
Younger leaves to the old give the releasing draught.
Winter, though, has the right tense for a look indoors
At ourselves and with First Names to sit face to face,
Time for reading of thoughts, time for trying out
Of new meters and new recipes, proper time
To reflect on events noted in warmer months
Till, transmuted, they take part in a human tale.
There, responding to our cry for intelligence,
Nature’s mask is relaxed into a mobile grin,
Stones, old shoes, come alive, born sacramental signs,
Nod to us in the First Person of mysteries.
They know nothing about, bearing a mess from
The invisible sole Source of specific things.
COPYRIGHT 2007 Long Island University, C.W. Post College
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/1402-aeolic-odeaeolic-verse-asclepiad-meterglyconics/
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the wonderful PMO site. It is a wonderful resource.

Other Odes: Aeolic OdeAnacreontic Ode, Choral Ode or Pindaric Ode or Dorian Ode, Cowleyan Ode or Irregular Ode, Horatian OdeKeatsian or English Ode, RonsardianOde

Thematic Odes:

Elegy, Obsequy, Threnody Ode
Elemental Ode
Genethliacum Ode
Encomium or Coronation Ode
Epithalamion or Epithalamium and Protholathiumis
Palinode Ode
Panegyric or Paean
Triumphal Ode
Occasional Verse

Dear Readers,

The information taken from above and elsewhere leaves me in a state of confusion and despair. It seems that since the forms of that Greek and Latin era were both quantitative and irregular, and based upon long-short sounds that English (outside of music) does not do well, emphasizing instead stressed vs unstressed syllables – that I must take the bull by the horns and announce that since 21st century poets are
transformative (as all poets have been), I shall herein transform.

I have devised for my structure of the Aeolic Ode the following metric. It incorporates:
(1) Adonic line – a verse line with a dactyl followed by a spondee or trochee; supposedly used in laments by Adonis.
(2) Hendecasyllabic lines,
(3) A choriamb, to approximate an asclepiad.
(4) A foot that possesses an optional stress (approximating an anceps)
(5) The four metric feet include two, three, and four-toed metric feet. That alone is irregular.
(6) Rhyme is purely optional, in use and position.
(7) Stanza length and number is left to poets discretion.

First foot: A Dactyl
2nd foot: Either a spondee or a trochee|
3rd foot: A Choriamb (DUM da da DUM)
4th foot: An Iamb

Below is my example poem, and a visual template for my version of the Aeolic Ode for the 21st Century.

Ode to a Three-toed Sloth (Aeolic Ode)
Praise now the three-toed sloth who’s a folivore.
Hang he does, upside down, in a tranquil way
Eating the leaves and shoots and not needing more.
Cockroaches, moths and algae and ciliates,
beetles and fungi call his hair home sweet home.
He is a happy host for a range of life.
Eating what other cannot abide, he takes
Much time for every action for little food
value has leaves. Digestion requires a month.
Though he’ll descend each week just to take a leak
poop and then cover up the latrine he dug,
he’s most content up high. Do you wonder why?
Everything’s done upside down because of claws
made for that task, including a nap and sex.
Even some sloths who died have remained attached.
Half of the muscle mass that’s allotted to
beasts of their same size saves that hard- gleaned glucose
Therefore a sloth’s sloth screams “elegant” design.
© Lawrencealot – August 15, 2014
Visual template for this particular form.
Aeolic Ode

Alcaic Stanza poetry form

Alcaics “gives an impression of wonderful vigour and spontaneity”. The 1911 Edition Encyclopedia. The stanzaic form is attributed to the poet Alceaus 6th century BC and is an Aeolic classic meter.

Alcaics stanzaic form is:
• stanzaic, any number of quatrains may be written.
• metric, quantitative verse. The first 3 lines are 5 metric feet and the last line, 4 metric feet with a specific combination of trochees and dactyls. There are variations on the rhythm of the Alcaics quatrain but the following (one source refers to it as the dactyl Alcaic quatrain) seems to me the most common as demonstrated in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Milton.

(acephalous refers to the missing 1st syllable of an iambic foot)

L1 & L2 acephalous iamb, 2 trochees and 2 dactyls;
L3 acephalous iamb, 4 trochees;
L4 2 dactyls 2 trochees in that order

Quantitative Verse
L-Ls-Ls-Lss-Lss
L-Ls-Ls-Lss-Lss
L-Ls-Ls-Ls-Ls
Lss-Lss-Ls-Ls

Milton Part I by Alfred Lord Tennyson 1891
O mighty-mouth’d inventor of harmonies,
O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset–
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedar arches
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,
Where some refulgent sunset of India
Streams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,
And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods
Whisper in odorous heights of even.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1250
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example poem

Middle Class Morass (Alcaics)

O Yes! The rich have bankable balances;
O Yes! they choose the candidate’s policies.
Not those for whom the dole is dribbled,
though they contribute the votes those men need.

© Lawrencealot – August 3 , 2014
Visual Template
(4 lines or multiple)
Alcaics

The de Tabley

• The de Tabley is a verse form patterned after Chorus from Medea by John Leicester Warren, Lord de Tabley (1835-1895). De Tabley’s poetry reflected his study of the classics and his passion for detail.

The de Tabley is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains.
○ metric, alternating iambic pentameter and iambic trimeter lines. L1 of each stanza begins with a trochee
○ rhymed, rhymed scheme abab cdcd etc.
Chorus from Medea by John Leicester Warren, Lord de Tabley
SWEET are the ways of death to weary feet,
Calm are the shades of men.
The phantom fears no tyrant in his seat,
The slave is master then.
Love is abolish’d; well, that this is so;
We knew him best as Pain.
The gods are all cast out, and let them go!
Who ever found them gain?
Ready to hurt and slow to succour these;
So, while thou breathest, pray.
But in the sepulchre all flesh has peace;
Their hand is put away.
Pasted from <http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=668>
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the fine PMO resource.
My example poem
An Old Man’s Dog (The de Tably)
Fate had to play a part in bringing you
looking at pups that day.
Your wife thought it was something fun to do,
and thus you said okay.
Tiny, and still unsteady on my feet,
knowing we had a fit,
I curled up in your hand and felt complete.
How soon you did commit!
Less than a minute passed before we knew
we’d be each other’s pride.
The bond, so evident twixt me and you,
the kennel-master cried.
Never was I an incidental pet
Not just a thing or toy;
We taught each other and we’re learning yet,
thus multiplying joy.
Chewing on shoes is part of puppyhood
and I did spoil one pair.
You said, “Bad dog!” to me, then like you should
hid them from me somewhere.
Bad Dog! became a phrase without a smile
warning me to change my ways.
Those words I haven’t heard now for a while;
I try to earn your praise.
Likely I’ll live until you die my friend.
I’ll miss you every day
and dream of you each night until my end.
I hope it works that way.
Should I become so ill I cannot cope
please take me to the vet.
That in your arms I pass, remains my hope;
just give me one more pet.
© Lawrencealot – June 27, 2014
Visual Template
The de Tabley

Trochadiddle

This form started as a nonce form written by
Michael Fantina, aka Eusebius of Alllpoetry for his poem
“Magics”
Michael is much too busy writing beautiful and entertaining poetry to be bothered with the practice of giving names to forms which he writes on the fly, often consciously or subconsciously influenced by Algernon Swinburne, from whom he thinks he might have borrowed this pattern.  Definitely he was influenced to occasionally merge two un-stressed syllables, or to add an occasional syllable deviating from a strict syllabic or accentual pattern where his creativity and mind’s ears says that it works.
Neither was Swinburne the only great to invoke this technique.  In fact is it is hard to find truly creative and expressive poets where this technique has not sometime found deployment.
I have been just learning to conform to form and pattern, and like anyone just learning, have always felt safer abiding strictly to the defined pattern of a form.
I define and name each new form that I see (and/or like in any manner at all) so that we may speak of it by name and all be speaking of the same animal when we give it a try.
My specifications:
This is a stanzaic poem, consisting of one or more sestets.
It is syllabic, each stanza being 10/10/6/5 syllables.
Rhymes: aabcbc, where the b-rhymes are feminine.
Metered subject to the following pattern:
DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da
da DUM da da DUM
da DUM da da DUM da
da DUM da da DUM
Note: if  you write this same form beginning each of the long lines with a Spondee as did Gary Kent Spain, writing as venicebard on Allpoetry, you will have written a Spondiddle.
Original poem Magics by Eusebius
Gather the stars and the moon for a spell,
With holly and sard and an umber conch shell.
And sing to the sound of
A bell left unrung.
With a pestle ground love
Till your song is re-sung.
Call on a harlot who’s pale as the moon,
Call on her nightly, but call on her soon.
And while she is weeping,
Take one crystal tear,
And when she is sleeping
One jewel from her ear.
Gather them there near your hearth at the dawn,
Drench them with dew from the grass on the lawn,
And while it is brewing
Like some frothing sea,
You’ll soon then be wooing,
But me, only me!
© February 2014
You will see that the above poem, and the one illustrated by the visual template below, stray 0ccasionally from the specified pattern.
That is what I refer to a creative diddling around, and led me to the name of this form.
This represents a step forward in my poetic growth, as my rigidity is lessened for I realize now that poets always have this license, but can never take a knock for exercising it in competition with this form.
My example poem:
Sweet Apparition     (Trochadiddle)
Watched as the moon and the clouds seem to pose
with stars bunched so closely the Milky Way glows,
with night now becoming
invitingly cool
I heard something coming
up out of the pool.
She’s an apparition it seems at first glance
formed with perfection and sure to entrance.
Her eyes are green emeralds
but tinted with blue
her voice sweetly heralds
sweet pleasure, I knew.
“Love me tonight while we’re here all alone,
I cannot stay for this form is on loan.”
I did I’m believing,
I slaked both our thirst
and she’s not now grieving-
relieved of her curse.
© Lawrencealot – February 26, 2014
I call this a Trochadiddle
Long lines begin with a trochee and end with an iamb.
You will note that in line 2, I added an unstressed
Syllable before beginning the pattern – and also added an extra unstressed syllable mid-line,
 as I did elsewhere.  This is the diddling!
So the stressed syllables become
STARS, CLOSE, MILK, GLOWS, as though “with” were on line1.
Visual Template

Black Narcissus Tercet Rima

This form was invent by Barry Hopkins, aka Black Narcissus on Allpoetry.

As it turns out this is NOT a new form, indicated be the comment below: but the poet thought it was, and I am not knowledgeable enough to recognize historic precedents all of the time.  I’m leaving it, as it is a friendly form that has already gained some traction on Allpoetry, but a reading of the link below will give some proper attribution to previous users.
_____
Quote from Mary Boren:
“I agree that it’s a very pleasing metrical pattern, Larry, but I wouldn’t call it a newly invented form.  It has been used extensively in traditional verse of  the past and is especially popular in Australian Bush Verse.  I can’t point to any specific examples from famous poets, but
was written in 2001.”
________
It consist of tercet stanzas.
It is syllabic 8/8/11
Rhyme Pattern: aab ccb dde ffe...(aabccbddeffe…)
Meter: Anapest,
Sort lines:  Amphibrach,Trochee for the short lines.
                   da da DUM da DUM da DUM da (hence feminine rhyme)
Long Line   Anapest, Amphibrach,Trochee,Amphimacer for the long line
                   da da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
Example
Cricket. ( By Jiminy! ) – Black Narcissus
It’s the willow on the leather
and the doubts about the weather
that make cricket, lovely cricket, great for me.
There’s a batsman and a bowler
and a light or heavy roller
that make cricket more like outdoor poetry.
There’s a googly and a flipper,
there’s the team and there’s the skipper,
there is D.R.S and snicko for an edge.
There’s a twelfth man and a third man,
there was body line and Bradman
and the Aussies who are often known to sledge.
There’s a bouncer and a beamer
and the wily English seamer
who can move the ball in ways I can’t describe.
There are pace men there are spinners,
there are losers there are winners
and some cheaters who’ve been known to take a bribe.
We’ve created twenty/twenty
where the runs are scored a’plenty
and one fifty is about an average score.
Yet I much prefer test cricket
on a fifth day turning wicket;
after five days though it might just be a draw.
Visual Template

Amaranth poetry form

Amaranth is an invented verse form that was probably created as a teaching tool by Viola Gardner. It makes deliberate use of the 9 most common metric feet. Each line is one metric foot, the pattern changing from line to line. 
The Amaranth is:
  • 9 lines strophe. It is a stand alone poem.
  • metric, the 9 most common metric feet are used in sequence.
    L1 Spondee SS
    L2 Iamb uS
    L3 Pyrrhic uu
    L4 Dactyl Suu
    L5 Trochee Su
    L6 Amphimacer SuS
    L7 Choriamb SuuS
    L8 Anapest uuS
    L9 Amphibrach uSu
  • rhymed at the discretion of the poet, although the metric restrictions are probably enough to contend with in this verse form.On the Cross by Judi Van GorderBehold!
    I am
    without
    sinfulness.
    Blameless,
    innocent
    guileless, bereft
    pleasing God
    forever.
With sincere thanks to Judi Van Gorder  for the above from the wonderful PMO site.
My Example Poem
Psychiatry     (Amaranth)
Wisecracks
are made
in the
analyst’s
office
shedding light,
clearing the way
for a true
discourse.
© Lawrencealot – November 27, 2013
Visual Template