Southeast Asian Poetic Forms

The k ōe l  is a poetic form originating from Southeast Asia, that has seen scattered use across Asia, Australia and the Pacific. They are conceptually derivative from Zen practice, and encapsulate the spirit of Zen kōan within more rigorous formal constraints. The plural form of kōel is kōel. Kōel in their original state were used to capture expressions of singular emotion, such as shock, innocence, or joy. In more recent years, kōel have been subverted to convey more duplicitous emotions such as smugness, or to convey a satirical take on the topic at hand. The kōel is a musically-inspired form that often hinges on effective onomatopoeia and sonics. When executed effectively and harmoniously with multiple sibilants, it evokes the sensation of birdsong - when written more subversively with heavy use of plosives, it creates the rousing effect of an early morning birdcall. Contents 1 Structure 2 Variants 3 Examples Structure [ edi...

The syair is a form of traditional poetry from the Malay-speaking world . The earliest examples come from the 1600s, authored by the Sumatran Sufi poet Hamzah Fansuri ; he may well have been the inventor of the form. Most syair are narrative poems, describing events, fictional, historical or anecdotal. They may also be didactic, conveying ideas of religion or philosophy. Often, they are not read silently; instead, performers sit before the audience with an open book and sing the verses aloud. The form may thus be said to straddle both oral and written literature. Contents 1 Structure 2 Conventions 3 Examples Structure [ edit ] Syair are made up of stanzas of four lines of the same length, usually four or five beats. The rhyme scheme is AAAA.  Syair lines often begin with stressed syllables and end with unstressed rhyming syllables, e.g. “orang” is an acceptable rhyme for “wayang”; “button” is an acceptable rhyme for “melon”. This is by no means a ru...

The found//fount sonnet is a poetic form, invented by poet Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé. It originated in Singapore. This variation of the sonnet comprises the fourteen lines expected of any sonnet, while dipping into existing texts to unearth fourteen distinct words, each of which are then woven into each of the sonnet’s fourteen lines. There is a strict method by which the fourteen words are selected and extracted. The sonnet is unrivalled in its classic stature. No other form has its cultural cachet, so much so whole nations have their own versions of it. The Italians have the Petrarchan sonnet; the English have their Shakespearean and Spenserian sonnets. Billy Collins has written “American Sonnet”, with Tomaz Salamun penning “Sonnet to a Slovenian”. In Singapore, there is Joshua Ip’s Sonnets From the Singlish , which clinched the Singapore Literature Prize. “As Singapore’s very own version of the sonnet,” Kon says, “this form revels in invocation and dispensati...