Terse Verse

Terse Verse

This is my name for rhymes which are, like the Japanese haiku, rely on few words which say a lot.

Time

Tick tock
watch clock
age paradigm
tyranny of time


There are a few named varieties of verse  - often comic in nature - which, although being very short,  have set rhythm and rhyming patterns.

The most well known of these is the Limerick. Eg:

There is a young farmer called Brown
who never goes into the town;
such a bumpkin is he,
he makes love to a tree
though the splinters are getting him down.


© 2003

There is also the Little Willie, named after the subject of the first one to become famous. This should be what is sometimes called black or wry humor, or tragi-comedy. Just four lines. Eg:

One fateful day my cousin Mary
lawnmowered her pet canary.
Mary's cat though had a treat;
he loves a bowl of shredded tweet!


©2002

And then there's the Clerihew, named after the author who made them famous. Four short lines, in two rhyming couplets, the name of a famous person as the first line, the other lines being about the person. Eg:

Elvis Presley
did impress me
always rocking
seen as shocking


© 2002

Another is sometimes known as 4x4. It's four lines, one word on each line, as rhyming couplets. Like these:

staid                         whale's   
maid                         tales
misses                      porpoise
kisses                       corpus
 

The epigram is another terse verse. Just two lines this time, the object being to make it witty, pithy:



I wondered where the golf ball went
and then it hit me.

Another fairly terse verse, and probably the hardest of the lot,  is known as double dactyl, which just means that most of the lines are composed of two dactyls. A dactyl is one long syllable followed by two short ones, as in the word "murmering".

The only rhyme is in the last word of the last line of each of the two stanzas, which rhyme with each other. The other stipulation is that the first line must be a nonsense phrase, and the sixth line should be one double dactylic word.

Eg:

Milly geewillikins!
Scientists utilise
artistic properties,
having a go.

Looking like soccer balls,
Buckminsterfullerine's
spherical molecules.
Whaddya know.


© 2003


All of these are much harder to write properly than they may appear, as the rhythm and the rhyme schemes are all important.  Brevity, too, is not always easy to achieve.

CLS
2003