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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

With Real Toads: the toddaid poetic form

No, it doesn't say Toad Aid, although it would be a good mnemonic. This week, in our journey through Welsh poetic forms under the able tutelage of Grace from the writers' group, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, we meet the Toddaid.

About this form, Grace tells us:
"A toddaid is a couplet of uneven length, often written in quatrain form. It has an interlaced rhyme (with) the rhyme...in the middle of both lines! If the toddaid is extended into four lines, there is also an end rhyme formed by lines two and four. Line one is ten syllables and line two contains only nine."


She also provided an example to inspire us, and a rhyme-scheme diagram to aid us. This is my own interpretation of the rhyme scheme diagram, with numbers representing the syllables, and colors showing where the rhymes should be.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

After some trial and error (trial: trying to inject deep, intellectual meaning into it; error: getting the line length wrong) and then realizing the example allows me to use an extra rhyme (oh, yay!) I managed to come up with the following:

Winter’s frightful blast is now on its way!
As in the past, let the snowy king
of the seasons reign, until bright’ning day
can once again declare joyous spring. 

© Photo by Richard Schear, January, 2011

This photo is from our archives. Our little town seems to be the only place in Alberta to have received no snow yet this season.


7 comments:

Jo said...

I loved this post, Kay. I learnt something new with toaddaid. Hugs Jo

Kerry O'Connor said...

Crispy cool words and picture. Nice one!

Mary Ann Potter said...

Oh, how wonderful, Kay! Winter there is obviously different from what we get here in North Carolina. Your imagery is beautiful here. Coupled with the photograph, it's a lovely presentation!

Peter Goulding said...

Flows beautifully. I was a lot more flexible in where to put my internal rhymes and made it easier for myself!

Doctor FTSE said...

That's a fine quatrain, strictly conforming to the syllable counts and placement of the internal rhyme.
Plus a fine winter picture

Chronicles of Illusions said...

Wow - you did it so well _ I want to try this one now...

Mike Patrick said...

Oh, I really like this. Beautifully done and true to the form.