Treochair Poetry Form

I’ve been reading a lot of books set in Ireland lately, so it just seemed natural to pick an Irish poetry form this week.

The Treochair seems to be a simple form at first, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to write. It can have as few or as many tercets (three-line stanzas) as you wish. There are three syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and seven in the third. The first and third lines rhyme.

Now, if you want to get really traditional about it, you should use as much alliteration as you can manage. It can also contain cywddydd (harmony of sound) and dunadh (where the beginning and ending of the poem have the same word). To be honest, I was so concerned about getting the rhyme and syllable count right that the rest completely slipped my mind.

Not much of a schematic for you, but here it is:

xxa
xxxxxxb
xxxxxxa

xxc
xxxxxxd
xxxxxxc

… and so forth

And here’s my example:


My Winter Soul

Shuttered eyes;
I escape into dreamtime
even though it is unwise

to hide from
the world instead of facing
what I fear, what makes me numb.

When I wake,
dissatisfaction still there
nothing solved, head and heart ache

for something
I cannot see or touch or feel –
my winter soul, never spring