by Éadaoin Counihan, Writer’s Soc Secretary
A quatrain is a four line poem or stanza with a rhyming scheme. There are up to 15 possible rhyming schemes that the four lines give room to. Free verse is a more popular form and condensing poetry down to four lines is a challenge open to those who also want to shrug off the restrictions of the rhyming scheme.
The popular nursery rhyme Mary had a little Lamb is an example of a quatrain with the rhyming scheme abcb.
Mary had a little lamb
Whose fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
Tara O’Malley’s image of permeating fog sticks in the memory long after being read.
Fog
It was deepest darkest night
When the fog began to roll,
It swam to every corner in sight
Climbing into every crevice, hole,
It did not flinch from the light,
Nor did it relinquish what it stole,
A magician it was, slight
Of hand and thievery its goal.
I’d never seen such an appetite,
It swallowed buildings whole,
And since they ran, almost in spite,
It spat cars into potholes.
The sun didn’t scare it, not quite,
But the morning took its toll,
So it slunk away without a fight,
To await its next patrol.
January saw second place going to Gabriel Baños Gómez’s half rhyme quatrain.
Reflecting railings on a morning puddle
Holding heaven’s quivering craddle
How vain a life devoid of feeling
How blissfully shallow…
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/quatrain
What Is Half Rhyme? Definition and Examples from Poetry
NUIG Writers' Society 