The Poetry X-Files 1
A weekly look at different poetry forms from the unusual to more common
Mulder and Sculley eat your heart out. The Share The Love investigation team is now here. We have already been trawling through ancient archives and modern-day texts to hunt down poetry forms.
In our quest, we have uncovered forms that are weird but wonderful, magical and mysterious, strange but satisfying and some really boring ones too. Each Sunday we will bring you one form for you to have a go at.
Are you ready?
Clogynach Poems
After some research, I found absolutely nothing on the history of the Clogynach Poem. So I can only assume that this form is a mysterious offering from a summit of a Welsh mountain possibly before the 12th Century.
The poem itself is a six-line stanza that uses an AB rhyme scheme with syllable limits for each line. In simple terms, all lines with an A rhyme should rhyme with each other and so on.
You can have as many stanzas as you like as long as they follow the form.
Line 1: 8 syllables / A rhyme
Line 2: 8 syllables / A rhyme
Line 3: 5 syllables / B rhyme
Line 4: 5 syllables / B rhyme
Line 5: 3 syllables / B rhyme
Line 6: 3 syllables / A rhyme
