Seadna: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the seadna, an Irish quatrain form.
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the seadna, an Irish quatrain form.
Seadna Poems
The seadna is an Irish poetic form, which means there are quite a few rules about rhyming and syllables. But it's fun once you get the rules down.
Here are the guidelines:
- Quatrain (or four-line) stanzas
- Eight syllables in lines one and three; seven syllables in lines two and four
- Lines one and three end with a 2-syllable word; lines two and four end with a one-syllable word
- Lines one and three have eight syllables; lines two and four have seven syllables
- Lines two and four end rhyme with each other
- The final word of the first line alliterates with the first stressed word of the second line
- The third line rhymes with the stressed word preceding the last word of the stanza...
- ...and all three of those words alliterate with each other
I know, I know; it is a lot to track in a four-liner, right?
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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 seadna:
Bucket List, by Robert Lee Brewer
I wandered through New York City
in search of its Central Park
sure that I'd find it by morning
with many making their mark,
and I'm afraid there's no moral
to my story on the go,
but I'll still share this small warning
of my long wandering woe.
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.
