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Eiregirl
Joined: 21 Jul 2005
Posts: 10230
Location: Chasing a pink bunny
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Cool breeze (#28 Byr A Thoddaid-Welsh)
I am going to be writing several poems using Welsh and Irish forms so I thought I would start off by giving a tiny bit of information about ancient bards and as I write each of the poems I will include another bit of information that I find interesting and hope you do as well.
Ancient bards served a hard and very difficult apprenticeship. They had to be able to tell a story in a way that held the attention of the listener from start to finish without reading it from a book. The bards of old had to be able to recite poems flawlessly. They had to tell the story or recite the poem as though they were living it! They had to do this in a time period when few outside of nobility and the church could read or write. Do not misunderstand…many of these bards could read and write but many of them could not.
So how did they do it…how did they come up with so many wonderful forms of poetry? Many of these forms are relatively easy but these bards came up with some of the most difficult poetry…poetry that rivals the sestina in difficulty. How did they do it? The answer is that these bards were not stupid. They were very intelligent, gifted with natural ability and had a way with words as well as the ability to memorize a ton of stories and poems. You can look on what they did as though they were an actor who memorized all the lines for every character in a hundred movies and was able to recite each line with all the emotion and intonation needed and do it perfectly the first time. Therefore memorization is one way in which they did it…I will tell you another way they did it in a future post.
What is a Byr A Thoddaid?
It is a Welsh form of poetry that combines an eight syllable couplet (two eight syllable lines) with a ten and six syllable couplet (a ten syllable line and a six syllable line). The eight syllable couplet has end rhymes while the ten syllable line has a rhyme before the end at the seventh, eighth, or ninth syllable that rhymes with the end of the six syllable line. Syllables after the rhyme will have some correspondence with the beginning of the six syllable line. This correspondence might be alliteration, rhyme or assonance with the early syllables in the six-syllable line.
Structure…
Either couplet can lead off the poem…see the example formats below…
Legend for the below format…
The 1 represents the association through assonance, alliteration, or rhyme.
The a and b are the normal rhymes.
Each position is a syllable.
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxbx1
x1xxxb
or
xxxxxxxbx1
x1xxxb
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
Now my poem…
Cool breeze
The cool breeze blows in off the Irish Sea
At the land it does scoff
As it travels across the Isle
That will take but a while
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Tue May 30, 2006 5:41 am |
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Mdm Prez
Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 1536
Location: U.S. of A.
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Eire
I've been following your tutorials, even tho I'm not a poet.
Your knowledge astounds me.
You are the real deal here.
Mdm _________________ If you're not getting the answers you want,
you're not asking the right questions.
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Tue May 30, 2006 2:22 pm |
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Mairi bheag
Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 5094
Location: Scotland
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Eire - you got a PM of my "
Blodeuwedd
" - I am just awaiting approval to use a copyrighted picture, and then I will post it.
Mb
xx
_________________ all posted material (c) Marie Marshall, unless otherwise stated.
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Wed May 31, 2006 4:39 pm |
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