Poetic Form Alphabet

I haven’t contemplated this for a while, but I thought it would be a fun challenge for myself to run the alphabet this year, each letter represented by a poetic form attempted.

I’ve noted before, although not for a while I think, that when it comes to poetry I’m more or less a formalist. For my own personal reading (and writing) pleasure, there needs to be structure for it to be poetry. No free verse here and no visual poetry. Rhythm, meter, rhyme, and so on. Don’t get me wrong, enjoy what you enjoy, but when I read poetry it needs to feel different than prose and the difference is in the structure. If it’s read aloud and I can’t tell the difference, it isn’t poetry to me.

So, structured forms, or in at least one case, a form that’s easy to impose structure on, beginning with each letter of the alphabet. There are several letters I’ve had difficulty finding a form to match. Not that I’ve completely given up hope yet, but for one of those, I’ve already created my own form: Xenic verse. It’s my second form, having built and formalized the idea of the Pleiadic poem when I was younger (and I’m using it for P this year). That experiment was unrelated to this one and seemed like a naturally occurring thing at the time. I’ll talk about each of those in detail another day, and probably whatever I eventually come up with to cover off J and U.

For now, let me introduce you the expected alphabet, noting the ones I’ve already covered for the year. I should say that these are mostly, but not exclusively, traditional forms borrowed from various places.

A: Alphabetic, which seems fitting given the nature of the experiment. I’ve selected the “each line starts with the next letter” version and imposing a rhyme and metre, most likely tetrameter or common meter, which seem to be my go-to choices in the last couple of years.
B: Bref Double, a traditional French form with fourteen lines and a specific rhyme scheme.
C: Clerihew, invented in the early 20^th century by the English poet and writer, Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Four-line stanzas (although usually only one) that starts with a person’s full name and has an aabb rhyme scheme and lines of different lengths.
D: Dechnad Cummaisc, an Irish form using four-line stanzas and a moderately complicated structure and rhyme scheme.
E: Englyn Cyrch – a Welsh form having a single 4-line stanza with a particular rhyme scheme and seven-syllable lines.
F: Fibonacci Poem (or Fib), a very modern form invented in the early 21^st by the American poet Gregory K. Pincus. The Fib has a syllabic structure following the Fibonacci sequence as far as you care to take it. In practice, more than the first six lines gets unwieldy.
G: Gruk, invented during the Nazi occupation of Denmark of World War II by the Danish polymath Piet Hein. A short poem of rhyming aphorism. The rhyme is required but overall structure is determined by the poet.
H: Haiku, a traditional Japanese form. I mostly work in the 5-7-5 variety and produce them regularly.
I: Idyll, a short poem of flexible structure and rhyme scheme, descriptive of rustic or everyday life. Originated in ancient Greece.
J: here’s a letter where I’ve come up dry so far so will probably need to invent my own at some point.
K: Kyrielle, another French form. Four-line stanzas and as many as you’d like, with four possible rhyme schemes allowed and eight syllables per line required.
L: Limerick. There once was a lady from Venus…
M: Minute. 60 syllables total broken up into three four-line stanzas each with its own aabb rhyme scheme and 8-4-4-4 syllabic structure. I like this one. I haven’t been able to find an even vaguely definitive origin, but it feels reasonably modern to me. Post Industrial Revolution, at the very least, but 20^th century seems likely.
N: Nonce. A one-off form with a rhyme scheme and structure selected by the poet, then abandoned. Has structure but that structure isn’t formalized or necessarily repeated.
O: Ottava Rima, an Italian dating back to at least the 14^th century, an 8-line poem in iambic pentameter with a specified rhyme scheme.
P: Pleiadic. This one is mine, and I’ll write a detailed post later, but the TLDR version is seven lines of seven syllables each, all starting with the same sound and with end-rhymes optional.
Q: Quatern, another French form, this one with four four-line stanzas each having eight syllables, but no rules for rhyming or meter.
R: Rondelet, a French seven-line form with a specific structure.
S: Sicilian Octave, an 8-line Italian form with an abababab rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter.
T: Triolet, an 8-line French form with a specific rhyme scheme and refrains. I find refrains challenging, so this one is deliberately to stretch my poetry muscles in harder ways.
U: another letter I’m coming up empty on so far so will probably need to invent my own.
V: Villanelle, a French form with a specific structure and more refrains. I picked this one because I’ll find it very difficult to write. It seems likely I’ll save this until some point when I want to punish myself poetically.
W: Waka, a Japanese 5-line form related to both Haiku and Tanka, with specific and punctuation requirements.
X: Xenic Verse, the second of my forms on this list, and crafted recently. The short version: 5-line stanzas (between one and seven of them), with eight syllables lines and a rhyme structure chosen by the poet but consistent for all the verses in a given Xenic poem. There are reasons for all the numbers.
Y: Ya-du, a Burmese form with five-line stanzas and a complicated rhyme scheme.
Z: Zejel, an old Spanish form that’s probably a transplant of an ancient Arabic form, with (usually) 8-syllable lines and a

And there’s the list. I’ve only managed seven of them so far in this year’s poetry, but there’s plenty of year left, and as of today my schedule is at least a little more relaxed.

Not exclusively, but there are an awful lot of European forms here (six of them French). In fairness to my current self, it’s what I grew up reading and what’s still more likely to be found in English, the only language I currently feel competent to read poetry in. In fairness to my future self, I intend to repeat this experiment next year and nothing on this year’s list that isn’t my own invention will be allowed, so I’ll almost have to go further afield geographically and culturally for my form-hunting. It should involve some interesting and brain-expanding reading and some even more brain-expanding poetic experimentation.

So that’s one of this year’s literary experiments, and I wonder if anyone else is doing something similar.

Oh, and if you needed reminding, it’s Earth Day. Go make the space around you a little greener in the way that seems most appropriate to you.

Be well, everyone.