Kelly+R's+User's+Guide

=How to Write a Quatrain=

A quatrain is simply a four-line stanza. It is the most common stanza form in European poetry. It varies greatly in type, rhyme, and meter.

__**Most Common Forms**__

 * < **FORM** ||< **EXAMPLE** ||
 * < ABCB

(ballad quatrain) ||< From Samuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The Sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea cam he! And he shone bright, and on the right Went down into the sea. ||
 * < AABB ||< From William Blake's "The Tyger"

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the knight What immortal hand or knee Could frame thy fearful symmetry? ||
 * < ABBA

(envelope stanza) ||< From Tennyson's "In Memoriam"

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; ||
 * < AABA ||< From Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. ||
 * ABAB

(heroic stanza) || From Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; ||

Quatrains can be combined to create larger poems. In a sense, a quatrain is the building block for many types of poems. Ballads, for example, are commonly made up of quatrains. Here is an example:


 * Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"**

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

As you can see, this poem is made up of 4 quatrains. The first three are in AABA form, but the last one is in AAAA form. This shows that a poem can combine different forms of quatrains


 * Here are some examples of simpler quatrains written by everyday people from a writer's group.**

Twittering allows no room For limerick refrain For tweets, I write a shorter form The playful, terse quatrain.

They say iambic’s Homer’s thing I wish I did as well Tetrameter is not so tough Pentameter is hell.

I'm writing jingles when I find An interstitial time If you are in the market, please Consider one of mine.

Enjambment happens when you run One line into the next And doing this amuses me In my poetic text.

Ever feel your life is crammed With phone calls, texting, getting spammed Too many things irrelevant To deal with work that's still extant?

Quatrains allow for a great deal of freedom, making them fun and flexible for both experienced poets and beginning writers!

== Yes, but how do you __write__ them? Do you write one perfectly, then go on to the next one? Or do you sketch out a whole idea and then divide it into quattrains? What do you do when you can't get the lines to rhyme? What does it mean to "force" a rhyme? Why do you consider it "free," when it has a prescribed rhyme and rhythm? ==