Monday, March 23, 2015

Monday Poetry Stretch - Clogyrnach (Welsh Poetic Form)

I'm not quite ready to share my National Poetry Month project quite yet, but I'll admit to examining verse forms and speaking with poets as I prepare. One of the fine poets I spoke with extolled the virtues of "foreign" verse forms. I've been thinking about this ever since, and have started looking at forms completely unfamiliar to me. That's where this week's challenge comes from.

Clogyrnach is a Welsh poetic meter that falls under the poetic form of awdl (odes). Clogyrnach are composed of any number of 6-line stanzas. Each stanza has 32 syllables. The first couplet is 8 syllables with an end rhyme of aa, the second couplet is 5 syllables with an end rhyme of bb, and the final couplet is is 3 syllables with an end rhyme of ba. In some variations the poem is written as a 5-line stanza with the 5th line composed of 6 syllables. 

Here's a visual of a clogyrnach. Each x represents a syllable, while other letters represent rhyme scheme.

8 syllables - x x x x x x x a
8 syllables - x x x x x x x a
5 syllables - x x x x b
5 syllables - x x x x b
3 syllables - x x b
3 syllables - x x a

You can read more about this form and other awdl forms at The Poets Garrett. You can read about other variations of the clogyrnach at The Poets Collective.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a clogyrnach. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

11 comments:

  1. Winter Apology

    Ah, this winter will not be missed.
    It hit us hard, a boxer’s fist
    Thrust up between bones.
    You could hear tree groans
    And house moans.
    Please desist.

    ©2015 Jane Yolen all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jane, the first two lines are a kick in the gut. I like what you've done with this form. I wasn't sure about it at first, but in the hands of a master ...

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    2. Wow! Still need to work on mine… :)

      Delete
  2. Tree

    Old tree stretches giant arms wide.
    Among her branches treasures hide:
    Time-faded kite tail,
    Half a light-blue shell,
    Brown squirrel,
    A small child.

    © 2015 Stephanie Parsley

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now THAT works, Stephanie!

    Reworked mine:

    Asking Winter’s Apology

    Ah, Winter, you will not be missed.
    You hit us hard, a boxer’s fist
    Thrust up between bones.
    I could hear tree groans
    And house moans.

    Please desist.

    ©2015 Jane Yolen all rights reserved


    ReplyDelete
  4. Okay, I cheated.

    Ever Since

    Ever since fairies came one day
    and called Sarabeth Queen of May,
    all she does is sing
    of her fairy king
    with his ring
    and pine away.

    —Kate Coombs, 2015
    all rights reserved

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  5. Well, Kate--the Welsh won't give you a laurel wreath, but I will!

    Jane

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  6. These are fun -- all so different. The name of the form is quite a mouthful, though!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You got me curious Stephanie, so I looked it up. Apparently the pronunciation is "clog-IR-nach." :)

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  7. Nice writing exercise.

    MOMENT OF TRUTH
    Grinding of teeth, heart pumping scared,
    Endlessly thinking how I faired,
    Outside Lecture hall,
    Deep breath, standing tall,
    Positioned on wall –
    Test scores shared.

    (c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.

    ReplyDelete