Kýrie Elé...

Kyrielle: a poetic form (which is why it's getting the treatment on this week's blog), originating in 15th century France out of that country's troubadour tradition. It was written to be sung or declaimed in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, usually paired in four line stanzas. There was no prescribed limit to the number of stanzas. That was determined by the stamina of poet (if extemporised) and audience. And in practice, although eight beats to a line was essential, the end rhymes were not necessarily paired, though the fourth line of each stanza was usually repeated throughout as a refrain.

As has been pointed out by a couple of my fellow bloggers on theme, the root of the word kyrielle lies in Christian liturgy and the prayer known as the Kyrie Eleison, from the Ancient Greek: Κύριε, ἐλέησον (Lord, have mercy...), one of the most repeated phrases in eastern Orthodox and western Catholic litanies in particular.

Early kyrielles are thought to have had mainly religious or spiritual themes, which should come as no great surprise given the root of the word and the hymn-like structure, but over time more secular concepts and concerns, such as courtly love, were introduced into the tradition. Modern kyrielles, it seems, can be about pretty much any damned thing.

Although I've searched doggedly for some early examples of the form, it has not proved a very fruitful undertaking, and most of the samples I tracked down broke nearly every rule of kyrielle composition. Poetry, it's a funny old world, makes you wonder why we bother.😕

However, bother I did, though maybe I shouldn't have, and produced this, mostly to the strict conventions of the structure. It was not easy, believe me. It strikes me it must be hard to produce anything other than rather trite verse within such limited confines. I decided to take a swipe at the bad we do to children... it's a work in progress and it's extensible. I suspect I'm trying to make it do things that it was never designed to do. I may return to the kyrielle, though right now I doubt it.

Bloody Hell, Kyrielle, Boom Boom

Dripping the sweet sacramental 

syrup of evil onto each

innocent tongue, sentimental

addiction in the very young.

Given tablets to pacify

instead of attention leaves them

craving screentime to satisfy

addiction in the very young.

A nation of overweight kids

speaking emoji on mobiles

what kind of future? God forbid

addiction in the very young.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)