• Week 3 • Ya Du •

Creative Drought – A Ya Du

These doubts harass,
mind-laps assert
their sass and guile
in tapestries,
blind corners, and in cool fallacies

Down corridors
dampened roars won’t
stay moored for long,
yet eons blow
between my doubt and an ember’s glow

And, squeezed, the word
funnels, birdlike,
transferred to hand,
Oak from samphire.
Heard, the ghost of Orpheus’ lyre.

A Ya Du is a Burmese form consisting of 3 stanzas, and each stanza consisting of 5 lines. The first four lines of each stanza has four syllables while the 5th line can have 5, 7, 9 or 11 syllables (I have gone with 9 in this instance.
A visual as well as a musical poem, the Ya Du also uses a climbing rhyme, as follows:

– – – a
– – a –
– b – a
– b – –

5 responses to “• Week 3 • Ya Du •”

  1. I really like the way you’ve handled this one. Very neat and clever!

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  2. I like this very much… but what is the definition of Ya Du? I have never come across it before.

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    1. Hi Lois, thanks for the comment. I have posted the definition of the Ya Du below the poem now – I thought I had done so and may have managed not to upload it! It’s there now. A fun challenge getting it all to align perfectly! Cheers, A.

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      1. Wonderful! I might have to set myself a similar challenge if I can find definitions of all the forms! I wish I was still teaching because this would have been such fun with my students!

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  3. Buongiorno Lois, did you ever get around to having a stab at the challenge? Let me know if you have, or when you do :)

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