Last week’s form chosen by Paul Brookes was the Toddaid, another Welsh form. I found a Welsh site (in English translation) for the instructions. This is what I understood. Structure is couplets, L1 10 syllables, L2 9 syllables. Main rhyme, which can be assonance or consonance, is mid L1 end L2, and there’s an echo rhyme end of L1 and mid L2. Like all Welsh forms it should be song-like.
I really enjoyed writing these poems, particularly that slanting rhyme scheme that breaks the lines and binds them together at the same time. Like all poetry forms in translation, we tend to calculate in English syllables which isn’t the same as the original meter, making it hard, I find, to keep to an even rhythm. It was well worth the effort though.
The first poem is my tentative first attempt, expecting it was going to be difficult. The second poem still uses assonance for the rhymes and the third is an attempt at consonance. The final poem is more loosely ‘adapted’, keeping the line structure but mixing assonance and consonance and abandoning the lyrical aspect.
At the end of time
At the end of time and all things, there will
be, through the storm, a thrush still, that sings,
and the song in his throat, earth-fade’s lament
for the stars all spent, the dark sun’s birth.
Land of apples
These waves that rise and falling die, birth foam
to carry us to our home. Gulls cry
in sky, blue and honey-sweet, loud with bees,
as we walk the trees where waters meet.
No hunger here, no fear of night and shades
of sorrow in these glades, full of light
and peace, that grows and growing falls like rain,
all the pain to the great sea flowing.
Kestrel
Across the waking meadow, wing shadow
cuts the frosted blades, sharp as midday
summer sun. Kestrel swoops, keen-eyed, blood-fierce.
In this desert field, no secret’s kept,
nowhere to hide or cower safe from sight,
a final sigh, a life’s doused candle.
Waiting
Standing here, the place that was ours, we said,
the light green then red, waiting for hours,
though I know there’s no point, still kid myself
the crowd on this empty street will part,
a pushing seaward of time, and you’ll stride
back, then, when every stretched lie was true.
Last week’s form chosen by Paul Brookes was the Toddaid, another Welsh form. I found a Welsh site (in English translation) for the instructions. This is what I understood. Structure is couplets, L1 10 syllables, L2 9 syllables. Main rhyme, which can be assonance or consonance, is mid L1 end L2, and there’s an echo … Continue reading ToddaidRead MoreJane Dougherty Writes
