Rionnaird & Rionnaird Tri-Nard

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry
Celtic or ancient Irish Verse Form

The following are written with 2 syllable endwords and consonant rhyme. As with most Celtic or ancient Irish Verse Form, they are written with cywddydd and dunadh.

• The Rionnaird,  its elements are:
  1. written in any number of quatrains,
  2. syllabic, each line has 6 syllables
  3. end words are all two-syllable words.
  4. L1 and L3 consonate.
     x x x x (x a)
     x x x x (x x)
     x x x x (x a)
     x x x x (x x)
     Neighbor's Runoff by Barbara Hartman
     
     Water flows through furrows
     like quicksilver, spilling
     flecks of light on yarrow,
     filaree, and bindweed.
     
     Overflows nurse willows,
     trickle between cattails,
     past brush piled in windrows.
     Ponds fill with bright water.
      
• Rionnaird Tri-Nard (ru'n-ard tree-nard ) is just a little more complicated. The elements are:
  1. written in any number of quatrains,
  2. syllabic, each line has 6 syllables.
  3. all end words are 2 syllable.
  4. L2 and L4 rhyme, and L3 consonates with them.
  5. aicill rhymed twice in the second couplet, only once in the first.
  6. written with alliteration in each line.
  7. the last syllable of L1 alliterates with the first accented word of L2.
  8. written with the decfining features of all ancient Celtic forms, cywdydd and dunadh.
     x x x x (x a)
     x a x x (x B)
     x B x x (x b) (consonating with 2 and 4)
     x x b x (x B)

     Alien Invaders by Barbara Hartman                                 Leafy Spurge cleared Customs, Toadflax breached the Border, Black Henbane fouled Burdock, Hounds-tongue howled out orders. Wait! called Absinth Wormwood, We'll hop to the highway. Handsome Orange Hawkweed walked to take the tramway. Hoary Cress and Ragwort whacked small Spotted Knapweed, wrangled Russian Knapweed, mangled Meadow Knapweed. All these knaves are noxious — each spring more seeds emerge. Dyer's Woad will diverge, bean fields fill with Leafspurge.

     Promise by Larry Eberhardt Inviting just by sight, almost tinsel trapping, stilletoed toes tripping, in her sheer hose wrapping. She's surely sensuous; Suggests sex is waiting, waits while will is wilting. Still fates are Inviting.