Climbing Rhyme
The Climbing Rhyme is a form of Burmese poetry and the unexpected and captivating use of internal rhymes really knit the poem together. Much of what I have researched about the form has come from a description by Larry Gross and so it seems fitting that I use his creation as my example:
Each in His Time
Larry Gross (1953-1984)
Living’s merely the stage
untutored actors age on–
nothing sage, nothing profound
happens, only drowned emotions
some uncrowned king inside
continues to hide, refuses
to stride the world
unfettered, flag unfurled against
fate’s hurled arrows, cannot
invent his plot, must
speak what is penned
for him, suspend himself,
amend, pretend until he
becomes someone free, someone
striding Galilee, crowned messiah
in a world he never meant to be.
How to do it
Traditionally the poem’s lines would be four syllables in length, but Gross, in his adoption of the form in English poetry, decides instead on four words per line.
It is Gross’ adaptation which I have decided to describe, but if you would like to write the poem in its traditional sense, simply replace every instance of ‘word’ with syllable, so the lines will be four syllables long and they will rhyme on every fourth, third and second syllable.
The poem follows an internal rhyming pattern of 4, 3, 2 where the author must rhyme on the fourth (and final) word of the first line, then again on the third word of the second line and once more on the second word of the third line. In addition to this, the fourth word of the third line then starts the pattern off again by rhyming with the third word of the fourth line and so on.
Here are the rhymes picked out in a section of Gross’ poem:
Living’s merely the stage
untutored actors age on–
nothing sage, nothing profound
happens, only drowned emotions
some uncrowned king inside
continues to hide, refuses
The final line of the poem will often be longer, though it seems the tradition is to aim for an odd number of words so 5; 7; 9 or 11 are the options.
Find more poetic forms at Writing Gooder.
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