Welcome to the second-to-last day of Poem a Day! (If that thought makes you terribly sad, don't worry: on the 1st I'll post ways for you to carry on the daily poeming, if you don't want to stop.) Today's prompt is a type of poem: a treochair. This is a wild little poetry form with some unusual constraints. You can have as many stanzas as you like (or as few), and each stanza follows the same pattern:
- three lines
- three syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and seven in the third
- the first and third lines rhyme
They also, traditionally, use a lot of alliteration. Here's an example, an excerpt of one of my own, though I was so busy concentrating on the rhymes and syllables that I don't think I really used much alliteration! I've put the rhyming words in bold.
Hedge woundwort
does what is says on the tin
if you remember what wort
meant, before
tins, tubes, packets of pills, when
your sole choice to staunch the gore
was to tear
a trident of leaves and crush
the red pulp against the red bare
wound, the edge
already proud (the old sense:
pulled away). Look in the hedge,
like the name –
specifically, by the green,
left of the pub, where the tame
magpie mocks
the squirrels from the brambles
and the aspens wave their flocks
of wrens – though
that’s a bit long, for a name,
so you’d just say hedge, and know
where its tiers
of purple spires grow, with leaves
like nettles, watered by beers
... and on it went! It's a lovely form to play with, and one of those that's worth just seeing where it goes, because you're so busy concentrating on all the moving parts that you don't want to also be dictating what it says.
For an idea of what to write about, I suggest a wildflower's common name. Most wildflowers have a string of common names which read like poetry themselves. The one I was writing about, Hedge woundwort, is also known as Archangel, Common Hedge Nettle, Grass Nettle, Hedge Stachys, Red Archangel, Whitespot, Wild Nettle Grass, Wood Betony. Ivy-leaved toadflax, that dainty little ivy with purple flowers you see sprouting out of brickwork, is also known as Aaron's Beard, Climbing Sailor, Coliseum Ivy, Creeping Jenny, Fleas and Lice, Kenilworth Ivy, Mother of Millions, Mother of Thousands, Oxford Ivy, Oxford Weed, Pedlar's Basket, Pennywort, Rabbit-flower, Rabbits, Thousand Flower, and Wandering Sailor! A heap of poem suggestions, there! You could write about the flower itself or just take its name as a jumping-off spot: "Pedlar's Basekt" is a fabulous title!
To choose a wildflower, the Woodland Trust has a lovely gallery of woodland wildflowers and Photographers' Resource has a gallery helpfully arranged by month. Once you have your chosen wildflower, Wild Flower Web will give you the full range of common names.
The Meddling with Poetry course explores a host of different poetry forms as well as the musicality of language, poetic imagery, and other aspects of the poetic. It's 8 weeks long, one evening a week, and absolute beginners and experienced writers are equally welcome. You can read more details and book a place here.
