Poetry Forms

Breccbairdne

To me, a new form to play with, but in fact it is an old Irish poetry form.

Guidelines:

It is written in quatrains.
Each stanza has four lines.
The first line has five syllables.
The other three lines have six syllables.

All end words are two syllables.
But - written with the defining features of most Celtic poems, cywddydd (harmony of sound) meaning alliteration, consonance and assonance and dunadh (ending the poem with the same word, phrase or line with which the poem began)

Challenging.

An example:

tattle, by Robert Lee Brewer

Go, tell your father
that you saw your mother
being quite a bother
to your older brother

down by the river
where there is a sliver
of an uncooked liver
that prompted a shiver

before some shaking
without any faking
of news you were breaking
about their scene making.



My try:

Outside it's snowing
one rare, cold wind blowing
people stuck and freezing
wouldn't trade for anything.

Sources:
https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/breccbairdne/
https://www.writersdigest.com/poetic-asides/breccbairdne-poetic-forms
Poem ©Bianca Boonstra - 2022