Englyn Lleddfbroest: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the englyn lleddfbroest, a Welsh quatrain form.
Here's another englyn form. The englyn lleddfbroest (also spelled lledfbroest in Robin Skelton's guide) is another quatrain version of this Welsh poetic form.
Here are the guidelines for the englyn lleddfbroest:
- Poem comprised of quatrains (or four-line stanzas)
- Each line has seven syllables
- All lines within each stanza rhyme
- In the Welsh, they rhyme using Welsh diphthongs, but just use English diphthongs when writing in English
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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 an Englyn Lleddfbroest poem:
"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night," by Robert Lee Brewer
And we lost track of the hour
after storms knocked out the power
for our mood could never sour
as our conversation flowered
so electric was the air
as we rambled in our chairs
that we almost did not dare
mention that we even cared.
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.
