Droigneach: Poetic Forms
Learn how to write the droigneach, an Irish quatrain form with plenty of rhymes and alliteration, with guidelines for the form and an example poem.
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the droigneach, an Irish form that uses end rhymes, internal rhymes, and trisyllabic words.
Droigneach Poems
The droigneach is an Irish poetic form with the following guidelines:
- Quatrains (the quatrains can be combined to form longer stanzas)
- Each line can be 9 to 13 syllables long (consistent within the poem)
- Line 1 rhymes with line 3, and line 2 rhymes with line 4
- Each couplet has an internal rhyme
- The final word of each line has three syllables
- The final syllable sound should rhyme with the first syllable sound
- Ample alliteration is allowed (encouraged even)
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Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).
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Here’s my attempt at a droigneach:
bedtime stories, by Robert Lee Brewer
we will lecture you on this lullaby
about mathematical prodigies
who failed to ever fully satisfy
the detectives solving their mysteries
like overzealous crackdown chaperones
turning misdemeanors to felonies
and spreading rumors on the telephone
while claiming every quote is heresy
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
