I am quite fond of the shorter poetic forms, such as Haiku, Senryu, and Tanka, which are 3, 3, and five lines respectively. All three are Japanese forms and while these forms in Japan are not exactly the same as Western poets understand those forms to be. It’s complicated.
There have been many wise words written about those poetic forms, and I’m not the person to have that discussion here. I am instead going to talk about a form called the Tetractys poem. It was ‘invented’ by a man named Ray Stebbings, in the year 2000.
On further research, I’ve actually found a mention of this poetic form back in 2016, when I actually left a comment on the website post it was described in. So my dodgy memory strikes again, ah well … It doesn’t really matter, I’m enjoying giving it a go again!
In that article, which you can read here, if you’d like to, it is mentioned the poem can take on a variety of extended further forms, but at the basic level, it is a short poem of five lines, with this syllable per line count:
one, two, three, four, and ten syllables per line.
And in that article, it is mentioned the whole poem can be about a single thought, exploring it briefly, and then end. I wrote a couple of attempts at this poetic form, before reading that comment, so wasn’t thinking about that aspect of the Tetratcys, but these are my own tries at writing on of them:
Here
tonight,
I wonder
if tomorrow,
knows or even cares, how great this day was?!
I wrote this poem about the writing event I attended yesterday, and it was completely fabulous, so I wanted to immortalise it, forever! Or if not forever, then at least for now! The event was a presenter/poet who spoke interestingly about her writing, and public speaking. The guest was a well known South Australian ABC radio presenter, Annette Marner, who has two recent books, one a novel – “A New Name For The Colour Blue”, the other a poetry collection – “Women With Their Faces On Fire”. Both are awarded works of literature, and I heartily recommend you try to get a copy, and read them. Both are published by Wakefield Press.
This is the second poem I wrote:
This
is not
anything
deep, meaningful,
OK? It’s just maths, mashed with words. Art? Shrug …
So on re-reading my two poems, I can see both are in in keeping with what this poetic type is supposed to be, a single thought, explored a little. And to be honest and not wanting to brag, I quite like them both, but with a preference for the second one.
I’d love to know what you think about this form, and my words written about it. And of course, I’d love you to comment on my own poems, of course! Whether you like my work or not, the truth as you see it, is what I want to read!
Thank you.
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 