This is a new meta-project, provoked in equal part by the difficulty I had in composing verse in the Welsh cywydd form, and by the Laurel Sponsored Prize Display at Strawberry Raid V in which I talked about that and other poetic forms.
The plan is to work my way up to the cywydd by writing in a bunch of other forms, ideally of increasing restriction. I’ve already written a pile of sonnets, and I wrote a sestina for that LSPD. I also want to put together:
- a villanelle
- a rondeau
- a Chaucerian roundel
- an 8-line stanza ballade
- a 7-line stanza ballade
- a 10-line stanza ballade
- a triolet
- a strambotto
- a rispetto
- a deibhidhe (Form | Technical Verse)
- a deibhidhe baise fri toin
- a deibhidhe guilbnech
- a deibhidhe guilbnech dialtach
… and for each of those to have at least one poem that is felt as well as being technically correct. This post will serve as a kind of index for those as they arise, and for other forms as I find them.
When I’m done with that lot, particularly the varuous deibhidhe forms, I reckon I’ll be better able for the the cywydd.
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Aodh Ó Siadhail
I’m Máistir Aodh Ó Siadhail, OP, from the Shire of Dun in Mara, in Insulae Draconis, in Drachenwald.
I cook, do research, and write wording for scrolls and charters, in English and Irish, and of late I write poetry as well. My cooking usually falls within pre-Norman Irish (for which there are no written recipes) or 10th-13th century Arabic (specifically al-Warraq and the Kanz, both in the Nasrallah translations). Occasionally I do Tudor English cookery as well. While I do standard modern-kitchen feast cookery in plenty, my absolute preference is for outdoor cookery or period-style cookery, with open fire and iron pots. My poetry has mostly been Shakespearean sonnets, but I’m now branching out with a project to write some poetry in every form in Medieval Europe.
In persona terms, Aodh was born in the year 1000 in Dublin, of mixed Irish/Norse ancestry, and it’s now 1049 for him. He fought in the Battle of Clontarf, and when that didn’t go so well for his side, left with Norse friends. He travelled through Scandinavia and Rus’ territory to Baghdad, where he learned to cook, and then back up through Rus’ again and eventually home. He’s now a briugiu, a sort of royally mandated innkeeper, in the kingdom of the Southern Ui Neill.
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