Gavin Bennett's Blog: Rhupunt: Poetic Form

I’ll tell you what: These Welsh poetic forms are starting to grow on me. This time around, let’s look at the rhupunt!

Rhupunt Poems

The rhupunt has some variability to it, but also some rigid rules as well. I’ve had fun tinkering around with this Welsh form, and I hope you do too.

Here are the guidelines for the rhupunt:

The form can be broken down into lines or stanzas
Each line or stanza contains 3 to 5 sections
Each section has 4 syllables
All but the final section rhyme with each other
The final section of each line or stanza rhymes with the final section of the other lines or stanzas

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Here’s my attempt at a Rhupunt Poem:

I’m going to share the same rhupunt in both ways: The first broken up by stanzas; the second by lines.

She Said Hello, by Robert Lee Brewer

she said hello
in falling snow
outside the show
in december

& then she smiled
& drove me wild
& so beguiled
i remember

like she was sent
for that moment
to leave me spent
like an ember

that slowly died
as she good-byed
because my pride
would not answer

She Said Hello, by Robert Lee Brewer

She said, “Hello,” in falling snow outside the show in December,
and then, she smiled and drove me wild and so beguiled, I remember,
like she was sent for that moment to leave me spent like an ember
that slowly died as she good-byed, because my pride would not answer.

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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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