Poetry Forms : Sheshire

Monday, February 3, 2014

Type:	Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Isosyllabic, Pivot Requirement
Description:	A poem based on six-line verses with a closing couplet. Here are Chuck’s rules: The Sheshire is comprised of three stanzas of 6 lines with a rhyme scheme of either ABABAB or ABCABC. Completed by a rhymed couplet. Each line has the same number of syllables. The one exception to this is the last line, which may have up to six additional syllables. The additional syllables must a phrase that is set aside (by parenthesis or dashes, for example). If this aside is removed, the correct syllable count would be there and the line would remain a reasonable sentence. Each stanza should have a shift in tone. The ending couplet should leave the reader (or at least the poet) with a grin. It can be a darkly ironic grin, but a grin, nonetheless. The derivation is from the Hebrew words shesh and shir or shira meaning six poem.
Attributed to:	Charles David Lipsig
Origin:	American (Jewish)
Schematic:	Rhyme: ababab or abcabc Total schema: ababab cdcdcd efefef gg or abcabc defdef ghighi jj
Rhythm/Stanza Length:	6
Line/Poem Length:	20
Examples:	Cheshire Pesach, 2004
Status:	Incomplete
See Also:	Sestet

My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for the wonderful resource quoted.

The Sheshire is an invented verse form by Jewish-American poet Charles David Lipsig found at Poetry BaseThe name comes from Hebrew six=shesh and poem=shir.

The Sheshire is:

a poem of 20 lines made up of 3 sixains followed by a couplet.
isosyllabic except the last line which includes the the # of syllables as the previous lines plus a finishing phrase separated from the base line by caesura.
rhymed, rhyme scheme ababab cdcdcd efefef gg or abcabc defdef ghighi jj.
composed with a pivot or change of tone from stanza to stanza and ends with a note of irony.

My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the wonderful resource quoted.

Example Poem

Shovel Snow (Sheshire)

When I was only nine or ten

and winter's chilly nights dumped snow,

I loved to help my daddy then

We'd bundle up, he'd say, "Let's go!"

Together, we two working men

would scrape and push and scoop and throw.

Into my teens I found it paid

to take my shovel- make the rounds

to work for those who were dismayed

how quickly that white stuff abounds.

While others in their warm homes stayed

I worked with scraping, grunting sounds.

I had no sons to share the task.

Our drive was shaded by our house;

"Please clean the walk," my wife would ask.

Of course one ought to please one's spouse

so covered up, and with ski-mask

I worked. It did no good to grouse.

Retired and lazy now I nap

or read or watch my football game. (Let teens now do that crap!)

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