Copla / Copla Real / Pie Quebrado

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry
Spanish Verse
The Copla
Copla simply means stanza in Spanish.

• The Copla of 14th century Spain is commonly found in couplets of irregular length with no fixed rhyme .  The elements of the Copla are:
  1. stanzaic, written in any number of couplets.
  2. syllabic, written in lines of irregular syllables most often ranging from 4 to 8 syllables.
  3. rhymed at the discretion of the poet.
      
• Copla Real, popular in 15th century Spain, is a decastich which is made up of 2 Quintillas.  The elements of the Copla Real are:
  1. a decastich (10 line poem) made up of 2 Quintillas (Spanish 8 syllable line quintains turned on only 2 rhymes of any combination other than never ending with a rhymed couplet.)
  2. syllabic, all lines are 8 syllables.
  3. rhymed, the rhyme scheme established in the first quintain is repeated in the 2nd quintilla. Possible rhyme schemes ababa, abbab, abaab, aabab, or aabba. The one no-no is it should never end in a rhyming couplet.
      
• Copla de Pie Quebrado (Spanish-broken foot), from 14th century Spain, the pie quebrado or broken foot, is short line that is employed  following an octasyllabic couplet.  From the examples I found, it appears the Pie Quebrado can be written in two different forms:
  1. a tercet made up of a couplet of two 8 syllable lines with a 4 syllable tail or third line..
  2. or a couplet made up of an 8 syllable line followed by a 4 syllable line.
  3. rhyme at the discretion of the poet.
     
     Troubles by Judi Van Gorder