Recognize this form?

[Swashbuckler]

Hi ... I have a poem at Every Day Poets (The Weight of Light, published Jan. 2) and a reader asked me what form I had used.

I couldn't answer the question, as I'm not much of a scholar when it comes to these things. I write the poems and try to make sure they have a rhythm, and I know a sonnet from a limerick from a haiku, but ...

Anyway, I thought maybe Mr. Pitchford or some other bright poetic scholar here might be able to answer the question as to what form my poem is written in, if any. I can't reproduce the poem here for contractual reasons, but it is an aphoristic poem of only four lines, with the syllabic pattern of 7-6-7-6.

The emphasis goes like this (caps indicating emphasized syllables):

DAH-dum DAH-dum DAH-dum DAH,
dum-DAH dum DAH dum DAH
DAH-dum DAH-dum DAH-dum DAH,
dum-DAH dum DAH dum DAH

The rhyme scheme is A, B, A, B.


So ... is this rhythm and rhyme scheme pattern a common -- or uncommon -- recognized form? Is this stanza form something with a name; in other words, might you find several stanzas of this pattern altogether making up a poem?

Any help would be appreciated.

Steve Goble

Visit my blog, Swords Against Boredom, for news on published fiction and upcoming stories.

My short story, 'The Gods-Forsaken World,' published in GrendelSong No. 2 and reprinted in Flashing Swords ezine, received an honorable mention in the ?Year?s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008? edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.

[Swashbuckler]

A bit of looking about online tells me the metric feet in lines 1 and 3 are 'trochees,' while I already knew the metric feet in lines 2 and 4 are 'iambs,' so I got that far.

Steve Goble

Visit my blog, Swords Against Boredom, for news on published fiction and upcoming stories.

My short story, 'The Gods-Forsaken World,' published in GrendelSong No. 2 and reprinted in Flashing Swords ezine, received an honorable mention in the ?Year?s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008? edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.

[TW]

Shucks, it jest reads right smart. Ketchy title, too. Congrats on getting it posted.

'He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.' -- Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche

More about the published works and future plans of TW Williams here:
sites.google.com/site/twfiction/

[lin]

This is a kind of trochaic tetrameter. It doesn't turn into iambic because the beat turns around with line break. The down on one line continues to the next. In otherwords, read it aloud and it's all just trochaic.
Similar to greek and latin plays in trochaic catalectic tetrameter. The main practioner of this meter in English is William Blake. His poems run on like that: Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night.

I don't know of any name brand form with that scheme and beat, but there is a lot of poetry that if formal, but described only as 'iambic pentameter' or some such, rather than having a pet name.

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[Swashbuckler]

Linton: You are right, the trochee drumbeat continues right on through the poem and it easily could be read aloud as two lines of all trochee.

Thanks for chiming in. I have a pretty good sense of rhythm (I'm a drummer and almost a bass player) but I'm no scholar of poetic forms.

Steve Goble

Visit my blog, Swords Against Boredom, for news on published fiction and upcoming stories.

My short story, 'The Gods-Forsaken World,' published in GrendelSong No. 2 and reprinted in Flashing Swords ezine, received an honorable mention in the ?Year?s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008? edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant.