Gavin Bennett's Blog: Clogyrnach: Poetic Form

With the November PAD Chapbook Challenge just around the corner, I’m trying to cover a few more poetic forms than usual, including today’s offering: Clogyrnach!

Clogyrnach Poems

Besides being another fun form to say (like rimas dissolutas), clogyrnach is also a fun poem to write. This Welsh poetic form is typically a six-line syllabic stanza with an ab rhyme scheme:

Line 1: 8 syllables with an a rhyme
Line 2: 8 syllables with an a rhyme
Line 3: 5 syllables with a b rhyme
Line 4: 5 syllables with a b rhyme
Line 5: 3 syllables with a b rhyme
Line 6: 3 syllables with an a rhyme

Note: There’s also a variant that combines lines 5 and 6 into one line–making a 5-line stanza (see my example below).

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Here’s my attempt at Clogyrnach:

Leading a Horse to Water, by Robert Lee Brewer

When I was a horse, I saw light
reflect off the water at night–
the moon a bright rock
measured as a mock
up of clocks counting sights

I hoped that someday I would see,
though adventure eluded me
in my prison cell
echoing my yell
as I fell heavenly

into dark and dreamy attics
filled with jockeys in their spandex
and little black whips
with feverish grips
that will quip ecstatic!

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.

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