The fun thing about the Luc Bat is the sonic. See, in Vietnamese, there are two types of rhyme. It’s a mono-syllabic, tonal language, and so there are tonal requirements. Every syllable is pronounced in one of 6 tones, in Vietnamese. In every day speech, these tones are used mixedly. As far as poetry goes, however, they are combined in different patterns to form different poetic ‘melodies.’ Compare it to meter in English – i.e. iambs, trochees, anapests, etc. – which is more a stressing and unstressing, a rising and lowering of the volume of syllables, whether natural or intentional. Well, in Vietnamese, it’s not stresses, its actual tonal changes.  The tones are grouped into two categories, Bang and Trac tones. (no, really.) The former are ‘flat’ tones, and the latter are ‘non-flat’ tones. So here’s the thing. Every syllable tone counts, in Vietnamese poetry, right? The flat tones, they’re like the sound ‘co’ as in co-dependent. Say it out loud with me-co-…the sound falls, right? The sharp tones rise. Like the sound of the syllable/word lay. Say it – lay -. It rises. That’s the thing with Vietnamese poetry. Bac falls/is flat, Tac rises/is not flat. And if you really pay attention, you can tell the difference. Get it?

So, that having been explained, here are two explanatory schemes for this form:

First, the Bang-Tac sequence:

• Bằng bằng trắc trắc bằng bằng
• Bằng bằng trắc trắc bằng bằng trắc bằng.

Although the odd syllables in a line don’t HAVE to follow the rule. See the sequences/schematics below.

Second, the syllable/rhyme scheme in English/another schemal explanation:

xxxxxA

xxxxxAxB

xxxxxB

xxxxxBxC

xxxxxC

xxxxxCxD

and so on. The general rule is that each rhyme happens three times. The very last syllable of the poem loops back to the first rhyme, A, to close it out.

There are two rhyme schemes, actually. The first one is the most popular one.  I’ll take a note from the wonderful wiki entry I’ll link to at the end here (yes, I know, wiki is unreliable yada yada, that’s why I’ll link to a few other references too):

Key: • = any syllable; ♯ = trắc (sharp) syllable; ♭ = bằng (flat) syllable; ♭A = bằng (flat) syllable with “A” rhyme.

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭A

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭A   • ♭B

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭B

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭B  •  ♭C

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭C

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭C  •  ♭D

The second one breaks the tone rule, and can be summarized as following:

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭A

•  ♯ •  ♭A • ♯ • ♭B

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭B

•  ♯ •  ♭B • ♯ • ♭C

•  ♭ •  ♯  •  ♭C

•  ♯ •  ♭C • ♯ • ♭D

etc and so on. Any questions, ask in the comments below. Happy writing!

Some references used:

The Poets Garret

Wikipedia here and here

Guide to Verse Forms

Out on a Limb’s post Making Sense of Vietnamese Poetry Forms

PoetryBase

Wow. Mind blown twice now this week. You can find more examples of his work at his website, daltonmghetti.com. I highly encourage you do so.

pedrocampos.net. Also, thanks to http://www.emptykingdom.com, an art blog I follow, for posting about this guy. Cause holy brushstrokes.

The hardhats have been donned, the hammers gripped and the construction tape placed, and building has started on Dancing Ghost Grafix, dancingghost.org, intended to be the online creative place for me, my equally as ornery dad Jorge Ibanez, and whoever else we can wrangle into our escapades. So, the portfolio and all that is being slowly shifted there. Meanwhile, I’ve decided to reclaim both my writerly self, this blog and the attention of any poor sap that’s decided to read along in the interest of appeasing my poor, neglected and rather irate muse. Heeeeeere musy musy musy. Stay tuned, she may show up yet. Send out smoke signals for the cause. If you’re wondering about the new site title, it’s the name of one of my past poetry book I’ve published, which I’d be happy to dole out to you for a little lunch money. Let me know if you’re interested. There’s always, perpetually, a new book in the works, and the next one will include drawings, I think, because my muse has gathered friends to drink wine with. Speaking of online home wings, Hogtown Homestead, which strives to tell the story of two city slickers playing at Urban Homesteading, will soon (hopefully) come out of hiatus. However, we update with pictures and such fairly regularly on facebook, so come find us.

Stay tuned. Interesting things are afoot.

p.s. If you’re in the Gainesville, Florida area, you should check out the Feminist Open Mic every last Tuesday of the month at the Wild Iris Book/Citizens Co-op/Civic Media Center courtyard, and the Civic Media Center Poetry Jam (open mic) every Thursday at 930, approximately. I host both, and they’re a bunch of fun.

Travels

The last time she left,
the theft of her sun
had me throwing spotlights onto the walls,
trying to catch the phantom in the act,
trying to make something stick
but the slick surface of the shadows
allowed me no purchase,
left me bereft of her diamond souled footsteps and worthless,
with pocketful of a ghost’s change
and a stagnant routine.
I tried to buy time
with pen, paper, whisky ink
but the barrel of my shotgun marriage of heartache and art was empty.
By that point I was a hearty pauper,
dry veined from bleeding all over the page
and I could afford no more than to store my sentiments
in the tenement of my rib cage,
faded brick crumbling with rusted copper pipes dry and hollow,
my demons on the stoop hustling the angle guards
skipping their beats.

She would call me from her different corners
to lend me back pieces of my heart for a few minutes,
full of stories of night skies with different star patterns
and how the sea sings in a different key
wherever she was.
She would try and imitate their melody
to the best of her ability
and end up out of tune
because she’d still be stuck on our song,
needing me to harmonize.
She’d slowly rope my heart back in through the phone line,
whisper goodbye to keep it from being too thick of mass,
and I’d wait hollow chested,
she’d wait for my harmony,
till eventually
the sky would bring her back.

And the sky would bring her back,
I would collect sunrays from when her star would fall back to earth
and keep them in a jar for next time
just in case there was a next time.
And I would swear there wouldn’t be,
that the next time I would sling a rope around her foot and swing from her wake
taking in the view she takes for granted
from the top side of the sky,
grazing the bald scalp of the sunrise
and the dirtyclean soul of the moon’s foot.
But just in case,
I would keep bits of her twinkling travel’s dust
in a jar by the bed,
carry it with me in my travel bag
that I always pack and carry, always ready,
and label each entry in my journal like a calendar log,
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

Until the day would finally come
I would start over,
a new journey,
having grown wings she watered and helped tend to,
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4,
leaving a thank you letter at each mile travelled
just like my mamma taught me to,
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4,
until they dissolve in the rain, harden in the sun,
and form a papier-mache road
of everywhere I’ve been,
coating the world in one long love poem
to her,
to her wings,
to the wind she tosses my way from next to me
brushing the bald top of the sunrise
and the dirtyclean soul of the moon

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I will climb the fractured side of this calloused day to find you,
huddled in the brightest spot, waiting for my shadow
just so you can face it and remind it who’s boss, again.
You have a stubborn chin,
set like a linebacker 
whenever you see me pulling the storm behind me 
on the ragged tattered nylon leash I’ve kept since forever,
you have a smile that settles into your dimples like soldiers in trenches
digging in for a battle
and ready to turn into flower patches when it doesn’t take long.
I come with my shoulders bruised and bloody 
from catching everything I’d had balanced so precariously,
you saw it coming. You always do.

Your sun
loses all sense of manners
when it comes to my clouds.
All of a sudden it’s a londoner dealing with florida tourists,
quick footed and charmingly pushy, 
keeping it distracted with mutating accents
while it systematically unravels the rug from under it
until all of a sudden
it’s bright again
and I had no idea whatsoever how it had happened.

You are no tulip,
no matter how much you love them.
You are no dandy lion,
or bougious rose with sensitive petals.
You aren’t as simple as that.
You are a sunflower,
fire colored,
large hearted,
strong stemmed
and unapologetic,
bits of the dawn
that fall off in the process of rising
and scatter along the earth
setting weeds afire
and blooming.
I’m still blind from staring,
but the sunspots are starting to make patterns
that make more sense 
than the storm ever did.

(copywrite 2012)