A Mini-Challenge for Sunday ~ Celtic Quatrain

I thought an ancient Celtic-Irish stanza form would be just the thing for our Sunday mini-challenge, but the more I researched, the more I came to realize that there is nothing "mini" about writing in the original bardic forms.  On the contrary, it would take a lifetime of singular study to ever master the complicated rules.

from Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael

One point must be emphasised, the bard served a hard and difficult apprenticeship where memory and accuracy of story and form was constantly being tested. These poets were imaginative, intelligent as well as gifted. They did have one advantage however and that is of the spoken language. The language they spoke lent itself to natural rhythm and rhyme and possibly alliteration and consonance.

Celtic Cross, County Kerry, Ireland: source flickr.com

Note: Until the 5th Century the only written form of Irish was Ogham which was used solely for carving into trees and gravestones. As a result Gaelic Poetry was based on sound structures to make them easy to remember, with rhyme not as important as repetition, alliteration and rhythm.

Map of Ancient Ireland

I have selected the simplest quatrain form, which can be extended into a longer poem of three or four stanzas, but if you would like to attempt the more complicated options, you will find instructions on how to write them HERE. It is important to remember that Irish poetry is cyclic and the last line should end with the first word or the first complete line of the poem.

Ae freslighe
(ay fresh lee)

Each stanza is a quatrain of seven syllables. Lines one and three rhyme with a triple (three syllable) rhyme and two and four use a double (two syllable) rhyme. As was stated earlier. the poem should end with the first word or the complete line that it began with.

x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)
x x x x (x x a)
x x x x x (x b)

The following exemplar is taken from the same source, The Poet's Garret, as given above.

Undressed


Undressed trees stand shivering
as flimsy shifts blew away;
the last leaves are quivering,
till they too will drop, decay.


Under bark’s rough covering
grow tiny cells in wonder-
blooms to be, still hovering,
kept safe from autumn’s thunder.


Dreams of spring are flowering
in darkened night’s soft caress;
lovers cuddle, showering
moist kisses on skin, undressed.


©Leny Roovers

Ancient Entrance Stone at Newgrange, Ireland

If rules for form poetry turn your brain to a lump of stone, but the idea of Irish Celtic poetry etches a few swirls upon its surface, then the Free Verse option is also available, written to the theme of all things Irish.


The Sunday Challenge is posted on Saturday at noon CST to allow extra time for the form challenge.
Management reserves the right to remove unrelated links, but invites you to share a poem of your choice on Open Link Monday.