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Showing posts with label Poetic Forms: A. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetic Forms: A. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 May 2009

Alexandrine Couplets

 

 

Type: Structure; Meter; Rhyme scheme.

Structure: An alexandrine is a line of iambic hexameter, so an alexandrine couplet is two rhymed lines of such. These often come at the end of stanzas or poems and, in these cases, are also called codas

Meter: Iambic hexameter.

Rhyme: aa bb cc etc.

Example: Alexandrine Couplet by Jan Haag

A dark and gloomy day, pigmented by the moon --
who failed to set, who failed to leave, who would not swoon

into the thickness of the night, into the cloud
that dark, with glimmering rim, invited like a shroud

of sacrilegious candles lit to shine along
the way of strange behaviour, odd, eccentric, strong

and motivated, misalignment, across the dune
which even the isolated, lonely, haunted loon

forsook, and pushed its dark head into the lake, bowed
by the shocking ineptitude of time banging and loud

-- ended inevitably in darkness to prolong
what would otherwise end with a resounding gong.

Friday, 12 December 2008

Acrostic Poetry

Type: Structure, other requirement

Description: The acrostic is a special requirement poem. The first letter of each line spells out a word, name or phrase.

Schematic:   L1xxx…
                    L2xxx…
                    L3xxx… and so on

Line Length: There is no standard line length.

Poem Length: As long as the word, phrase or message.

Examples:

An Acrostic
by Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.


Fire and Pride
 by Jem Farmer

Fiercely won in humility,
Independence of conceptual thought,
Remains the writer’s ambition
Evoked by words drifting to line and verse.

Ambiguous acts of governments
Nurtured contempt and fear of the quill
Demands for freedom lie silenced.

Personal battles fought with the pen
Rights wrestled from censors,
Inventive imaginations born in free creativity
Deviant poets voices will be heard
Evolving in openness to reveal artistic flow


© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Friday, 31 October 2008

Awdl Gywydd

Type: structure, meter, rhyme, stanzaic.

Description: Pronounced ‘owdl gow-widd’. Seven syllable quatrains with end rhymes and couplet binding. Welsh origin.

Schema:

xxxxxxa
xxaxxxb (a can be 3rd or 4th syllable)
xxxxxxc
xxcxxxb (c can be 3rd or 4th syllable)

Mid-line rhymes a and c can be various forms of rhyme but the end of line rhyme b should be perfect rhyme.

Stanza Length: quatrain.


© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Monday, 27 October 2008

Alcaics

Type: structure, meter, stanzaic

Description: This form is Greek. It is a quatrain form, described in technical terms of meter, the first two lines of each stanza consists of an acephelous iamb, two trochees and two dactyls, the third line is composed of an acephelous iamb and four trochees and the last line is two dactyls and two trochees. The form is unrhymed.

Schematic:

X Xx Xx Xxx Xxx
X Xx Xx Xxx Xxx
X Xx Xx Xx Xx
Xxx Xxx Xx Xx

Meter: mixed

Line length: between 9 and 11 syllables

Poem Length: unlimited

Example:

Good Morning Mister Christopher Basleget
How goes the Day in Bathampton Somerset?
Drum beats sound Loudly Mangled like Mumerset
Winningly playing the Congo Bongo

by Jeff Green

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Ae Freislighe

Type: Structure, metric, rhyme, stanzaic

Description: Accordingly is pronounced ‘ay freshly’. This is an Irish syllabic quatrain stanza form. The simplified version for English language poets is as follows. Each line consists of seven syllables. Lines 1 and 3 of each quatrain ends with a triple syllable rhyme. Lines 2 and 4 of each quatrain ends with a double syllable rhyme. The poem traditionally ends as it began, either the first syllable, word, phrase or line (in Gaelic this is known as a dunedh).

Schematic:

xxxx (xxa)
xxxxx (xb)
xxxx (xxa)
xxxxx (xb)

Stanza length: Quatrain


© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.

Acrostic

Type: Structure, other requirement

Description: The acrostic is a special requirement poem. The first letter of each line spells out a word, name or phrase.

Schematic:

L1xxx…
L2xxx…
L3xxx… and so on


Line Length: There is no standard line length.

Poem Length: As long as the word, phrase or message.

Example:

An Acrostic
by Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.


© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.