Monday, July 14, 2008

Monday Poetry Stretch - Climbing Rhyme

Alright folks, time to try something new. This week I want to try writing climbing rhyme.
Climbing Rhyme is a form of Burmese poetry containing a repeated sequence of 3 internally-rhymed lines consisting of 4 syllables each. Since Burmese is monosyllabic, this works well, but in English this might be difficult. Instead of 4 syllable lines, let's try writing in lines of 4 words. (If you're feeling brave, go ahead and try four syllables!)

The rhyme scheme for climbing rhyme is internal. That means the position of the rhyming word changes. The rhyme appears in the 4th word of line one, 3rd word of line 2, and 2nd word of line 3. The pattern continues as a new rhyme appears in the 4th word of line 3, the 3rd word of line 4, and the 2nd word of line 5. This continues on, giving a stair-step feel to the poem, hence the name climbing rhyme.

For those of you who need to see this visually, here it is. Each x stands for a word. The letters stand for rhyming words. Just remember the 4-3-2 pattern.
x x x a
x x a x
x a x b
x x b x
x b x c
x x c x
x c x x
What kind of climbing rhyme will you write? Leave me a comment about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

7 comments:

  1. Oh baby this is going to be a challenge.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it is. I myself am wondering how to make this one work. It will certainly be fun trying!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had a blast with this one (and combined it with another prompt site so I had a ready topic to use with this new-to-me form). Thanks!

    http://havingwrit.blogspot.com/2008/07/summer-funk.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice challenge. Here's my attempt.

    "Word Ties"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hmmm.... what a lot of challenging prompts! I came across this form at Michelle's site Poefusion, and really enjoyed exploring it. It seemed to flow really easily once I got going!

    Together

    ReplyDelete
  6. I found some sort of rhythm with this. I'm posting mine for Friday Poetry. Thanks for the challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm in late with my post! whew this was hard! But thanks so much for the challenge.

    Marcie Atkins
    marcieaf.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete