Honing the Craft

Verse Form: The Trolaan   is an invented stanzaic form that uses the ancient Welsh technique cymeriad that begins each line of a stanza with the same consonant and takes it a step further beginning each subsequent quatrain with the 2nd letter of the 1st word of the previous quatrain to begin each line. Created by Valerie Peterson Brown, the quatrains have a specific rhyme scheme but the meter is at the discretion of the poet.

The elements of the Trolaan are:

         1. stanzaic, written in 4 or more quatrains.
         2. metered at the discretion of the poet.
         3. alternate rhymed abab cdcd efef ghgh etc.
         4. written with cymeriad (ancient Welsh poetic device), in which the first letter of each line in each quatrain is the same, although this form takes it a step further and in each subsequent quatrain the repeated beginning letter changes. The 2nd stanza begins with the 2nd letter of the first word of the poem, the 3rd stanza begins with the 2nd letter of the first word of the 2nd stanza, the 4th stanza begins with the 2nd letter of the first word of the 3rd stanza and so on if you choose to write more stanzas.