Irish poetic forms can be complicated. Specifically, because of the complex rhyming rules involved. Ae Freislighe (pronounced “ay Freshly”) is no different. The scheme is not too hairy compared to a lot of others. The poem can be as short as a single quatrain or you can string together as many as you’d like if you have a lot of things to say (and like rhyming).

Here are the rules:

• Quatrain stanzas (4-line stanzas)
• 7 syllables per line
• Lines 1 and 3 rhyme together, but they rhyme as three syllables (xxa)
• Lines 2 and 4 rhyme together as two syllables (xb)
• The final syllable, word, or line of the entire poem should be the same as the entire poem begins (the poetic term for this is dunadh)
• Poem can be just one stanza or may be as many stanzas as the poet requires.

Here’s the syllable/rhyming scheme shown in a way that I find easiest to understand:

xxxx(xxa)
xxxxx(xb)
xxxx(xxa)
xxxxx(xb)

Something that helps with the rhyming scheme at first is to find the two-syllable and three-syllable rhyming words you want to use for your poem or each stanza at the beginning and then work in the rest of the words after using your favorite thesaurus.

Keep an eye out… I will post my own Ae Freislighe later today.

Link yours in the comments below!

– Jason