Monday, June 01, 2015

Monday Poetry Stretch - Rhupunt

I am still reading and pondering the forms in Robin Skelton's The Shapes of Our Singing: A Comprehensive Guide to Verse Forms and Metres from Around the World. The Rhupunt is a Welsh verse form. Lines are 4 syllables long, with the last line rhyming with the last line of the following stanza. Stanzas may be 3, 4, or 5 lines long. Here is the pattern for these versions.

3-line

x x x A
x x x A
x x x B

x x x C
x x x C
x x x B

4-line
x x x A
x x x A
x x x A
x x x B

x x x C
x x x C
x x x C
x x x B

5-line
x x x A
x x x A
x x x A
x x x A
x x x B

x x x A
x x x A
x x x A
x x x A
x x x B

Since the lines in each stanza are generally thought to be portions of a long line, they are sometimes presented as a couplet with lines of 12 to 20 syllables. Written this way the rhupunt would look like this:
x x x A x x x A x x x A x x x B
x x x C x x x C x x x C x x x B

You can read more about the rhupunt at The Poets Garret.

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

4 comments:

  1. At the End of the Rainbow

    A rainbow swerves
    until it curves
    down to a field,

    then where it goes
    nobody knows.
    It keeps concealed

    and buried there
    in earthenware,
    its famous pot.

    What should be gold,
    so we’ve been told,
    but no, it’s not.

    The pot contains—
    Imagine!—chains
    of magic keys

    to passageways
    of that mind maze,
    our fantasies.

    J. Patrick Lewis

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like your gold better, Patrick!


    Baba Yaga

    She stirs the air,
    her witch’s glare
    crushing the night.

    Her mortar rides
    the midnight skies
    and steals starlight.

    The woods are wild,
    the foolish child
    will be her dish.

    But she knows all,
    things large and small,
    the secret wish.

    So brave her skulls,
    go to the house
    with chicken feet.

    Take wisdom home
    or find your doom
    in iron teeth.

    —Kate Coombs, 2015
    all rights reserved

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love these, Kate and Pat. Tricia, I put this book on my tbr list back when you shared that fabulous interview with the Poetry 7. Now I'm just going to have to give in and order it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice job, Kate and Pat!

    I 've wrjitten one that is much shorter and plainer. I love the idea of making one line of the shorter lines, so that some rhymes are nternal. And I like the way it can sound when punctuation interrupts the thrust of the four syllables. But I'm going to keep working to come up with a Welsh-ier response!

    Two Quick Riddles

    Here's a riddle that's a little plain. Tell me, how
    is a crow's wing like a tree swing? (Up now. Down now. )

    Here's a riddle that's a little stranger. Tell me
    the answer, please. Why do the bees buzz? (Just becauzzzzz...)

    ReplyDelete