Poetry

Heptarchate and Hexarchate Poetry

Poetry in the heptarchate and hexarchate is structured according to counts of syllables or blocks of syllables. For example, a hexarchate "couplet" might consist of two lines of six syllables each.

Notable Poets

Kel Zem Rao is a formally innovative poet who was active sometime prior to 350. His work often incorporates homoerotic themes. Titles include 'Twin swords', 'On this cold night', and 'Lost among the stars'.

Rahal Senjek is among the most noted Rahal poets.

Sonnets

Despite the obvious seven associated with sonnets, there are many sonnet forms available to both Heptarchate and Hexarchate poets, some with faction associations and some without. Both Heptarchate and Hexarchate sonnets are most commonly constructed in what's known as "mirrored" form, with — usually — a six- or seven-line pattern that repeats, inverted, with — for six-line forms — an "axis" couplet between them. The standard Liozh form, for instance, is ABCDEFG:GFEDCBA; another popular seven-line pattern that was (also) suppressed after the Liozh heresey was ABAB:CDC:CDC:BABA.

Some other common mirrored sonnet forms and their faction affiliations:

• AAAAAAA:AAAAAAA, associated with the Vidona (unsuppressed)
  • H*archate poets without exception have large quantities of jokes about Vidona poets. Just the words "inverted Vidona" or "broken Vidona" (see below) are usually enough to set poets either laughing or (more likely) eye-rolling.
• AABBCC:DD:CCBBAA, associated with the Rahal (unsuppressed)
• AAABBB:CC:BBBAAA, associated with the Shuos (unsuppressed)
• ABBA:C:DEED:C:ABBA, associated with the Kel (unsuppressed)
• ABCCBA:DD:ABCCBA, associated with the Nirai (unsuppressed)
• ABBBCCD:DCCBBBA, associated with the Nirai (unsuppressed but risky)
• ABABAB:CC:BABABA, associated with the Liozh (suppressed)
• ABCBA:DEED:ABCBA, a variation on the above Kel form, not associated with any faction (unsuppressed)
• ABCBA:DD:DD:ABCBA, a variation on the above Kel form, not associated with any faction (suppressed)

The Andan are the only faction who do not typically practice mirrored sonnets; there are no mirrored forms closely associated with the Andan.

In the Heptarchate era, avant-garde experimentation was primarily a matter of inverting standard forms — Rahal Senjek, for example, has a number of inverted sonnets based on the standard Rahal form, D:CCBBAA:AABBCC:D.

In addition to "mirrored" forms, there are a number of so-called "broken mirror" forms that emerged after the suppression of the Liozh (as a way for the avant-garde to flirt with Andan censorship). A broken mirror sonnet — or just a "broken sonnet" — rather than inverting the initial pattern, simply repeats it, uninverted. The archetypal broken mirror sonnet takes the standard Liozh form as its base, yielding ABCDEFG:ABCDEFG (poets using this particular form, even broken, probably risk suppression, but the broken version of the other seven-line pattern, ABAB:CDC:ABAB:CDC, is safe). While broken sonnets were initially built around Liozh forms, subsequent generations of avant-garde poets have "broken" forms associated with other factions as well. A broken Rahal sonnet built around the above form, for example, would be AABBCC:DD:AABBCC.

("Broken Vidona" jokes notwithstanding, at the height of the Liozh heresy (and before the development of broken mirror sonnets per se) the poet Vidona Mab Youn produced a series of six sonnets in the form AAAAAAA:BBBBBBB; a few other Vidona poets have been brave enough to follow his example despite its reliance on sevens, and this form is sometimes referred to as "broken Vidona".)

Once breaking itself became formalized, the practice of shattering sonnets developed as well. A shattered mirror sonnet — or just a "shattered sonnet" — takes its first seven lines from one pattern and its second seven lines from another. The second half may be inverted ("half-shattered") or not ("shattered"). Shattering is most easily illustrated by example. A famous poem by the poet Shuos Minjol, for example, takes its first half from a Nirai form and its second from the Vidona: ABBBCCD:AAAAAAA. The poet Nirai Sijeir begins one of their poems with a Kel form and changes to a broken Rahal form: ABBA:C:DE:AABBCC:D. Another of Sijeir's poems begins with a Nirai form and ends with an unbroken Shuos: ABCCBA:D:C:BBBAAA.

Despite being built around sevens, shattered sonnets (and Mab Youn's broken Vidona sonnets) are considered numerologically permissable precisely because they subvert the unity of the seven across the axis — metaphorically evoking the suppression of the Liozh heresy. Nonetheless, building either broken or shattered sonnets around Liozh forms is risky in practice — poets who write too much in or around these forms risk attracting the attention of the Vidona. That said, after the events at the Fortress of Shattered Needles, shattered sonnets were (briefly) suppressed within the Hexarchate and subsequently frowned upon in the Protectorate.

Curtal sonnets

"Curtal sonnets" are abbreviated sonnets varying in length from five to nine lines, built from parts of standard sonnet forms. After the suppression of the Liozh heresy, seven-line curtal sonnets were actively suppressed; as a result, some forms have both seven-line and more-or-less-than-seven-line versions. Some common curtal sonnet forms:

• ABCDEFG, associated with the Liozh
• ABA(B)CDC, faction-unaffiliated
• AAAAAA(A), associated with the Vidona
• AABBCC(:D) associated with the Rahal
• AAABBB(:C), associated with the Shuos
• ABBA:C, associated with the Kel
• ABBA(:C):DE, associated with the Kel
• ABBA:C:DEED, associated with the Kel
• ABCCBA(:D), associated with the Nirai
• (A)BBBCCD, associated with the Nirai
• ABBBCC(D), associated with the Nirai
• ABABAB(:C), associated with the Liozh
• ABCBA(:DE), a variation on the above Kel form, faction-unaffiliated
• ABCBA(:DD), a variation on the above Kel form, faction-unaffiliated

Traditionally speaking, the art of H*archate curtal sonnets is that they should both be incomplete and imply completion; there are a number of (conventional and unconventional) ways to strike this balance, ranging from recognized images and verbal formulae (especially common in curtal forms with half-axes) to Rahal Berash's Lens Poems (all in AABBCC:D), where each line of each couplet is composed of the same syllable blocks, but reversed, such that the half-axis implies an unwritten line.

Poetry in Other Cultures

Hafn poetry features agricultural themes. Hafn sonnets have 16 lines and follow a "wheel of the year" pattern.