Invented Poetry Forms – The Enneao

Thinking it would be an appropiate follow-up to my recent post on the Octo, today I decided to write about the Enneao, a poetry form I invented that was directly inspired by it. While the octo consists of 8 lines of 8 syllables, the enneao (which name was derived from the prefix “ennea” meaning nine) has 9 lines with 9 syllables each (however these 9 lines are divided into 3 stanzas of 3 lines apiece). Also like the octo, the first three lines are transposed as the final three lines of the poem, but in this case, the first line becomes the ninth line, the second becomes the eighth, and the third, the seventh. The fourth and sixth lines rhyme together, while the fifth line rhymes with the second (and eighth). The rhyme scheme (with capital letters representing the repeated lines and small letters the ones that rhyme) can be expressed as ABC dbd CBA.

To demonstrate how close the enneao is to the octo, I thought it would be fun to take one of the poems I wrote as a model for the octo, “Our Seemingly Unending Journey”, and rewrite it as enneao.

So first, to refresh your memory, here is the original poem:

Our Seemingly Unending Journey
(The Octo Version)

Where we will precisely end up?
I don’t think we shall ever know.
Seems a long time since we started.
In which season? I don’t recall.
Perhaps Winter or maybe Fall.
Seems a long time since we started,
I don’t think we shall ever know
where we will precisely end up.

By just adding an extra line, and an extra syllable to each of the pre-existing ones, you can see I was easily able to convert it into an enneao:

Our Seemingly Unending Journey
(The Enneao Version)

Just where we will precisely end up?
I do not think we shall ever know.
Seems like a long time since we started.

In which season? I cannot recall
(I do remember there was some snow…
so perhaps Winter, or maybe Fall?).

Seems like a long time since we started,
I do not think we shall ever know
just where we will precisely end up.

And now here is another example of an enneao I wrote:

Yes, There’s a Vacancy…

No one stays at the Ritz anymore,
most folks don’t realize it’s still open.
This old hotel has seen better days.

Once it was the hippest place in town.
People flocked here, but that was back then.
Now the owners pray it’d just burn down.

This old hotel has seen better days.
Most folks don’t realize it’s still open.
No one stays at the Ritz anymore…

I sincerely hope you enjoyed learning about the enneo today, and might even try writing one yourself (and if you do, please share!)  Thank you so much for reading as well as your continued support of this blog!