~ The Poet's Place Cafe~

Writing dimeter lines, basically 4 syllables isn't all that difficult, though sounds a little terse but very ancient Chinese. The form was named for an ancient Chinese lute, though the form itself is neither ancient nor Chinese, invented by an American in the 1950s. The oldest and I believe original source for this form is found in Pathways for a Poet, and it is the only source that mentions the beginning line being acephaletic. I did wonder if L1 was acephaletic, would that also make L10 the same? I went back and forth, whether or not to add "is" to the beginning of the last line. But I think it is stronger ending with only the 3 syllables.

I have to admit, to say what I wanted to say, the iambic pattern gave me a little problem and I abandoned it in several lines.

"sanxian - Form of the Week San Hsien" 

~~Tink

ps, , Along the way, in researching the Chinese lute I ran across this ancient gem written in the 700s, found at Wikipedia. I wish I could write like this:

Bai Juyi's (Tang Dynasty) Pipa xing (琵琶行), contains a description of a pipa performance during a chance encounter with a female pipa player on the Yangtze River:[32]


大絃嘈嘈如急雨
小絃切切如私語
嘈嘈切切錯雜彈
大珠小珠落玉盤
The bold strings rattled like splatters of sudden rain,
The fine strings hummed like lovers' whispers.
Chattering and pattering, pattering and chattering,
As pearls, large and small, on a jade plate fall.