Novems

The novem is a 3-line, syllabic form created by Robin Skelton (1925–1997) in which each line has 4 syllables divided between 3 words—two 1-syllable words and one 2-syllable word. The 2-syllable word is the third word of the first line, second word of the second line, and first word of the third line. Here's what this looks like (“x” is a single-syllable word; “a”, “b”, and “c” are separate syllables of 2-syllable words):

x-x-a-a/
x-b-b-x/
c-c-x-x

The final requirement is that, in each stanza, one consonant sound should occur 4 times.

Notes

2025-05-02: The form feels really over-determined to me, between the very short length, strict consonance, and precise word-and-syllable counts. In the few I wrote, the form ended up dictating what came next far more harshly than other forms I've tried, to the point that I couldn't really write what I actually wanted to write. I don't think I'll write more of them.

2025-05-10: Taking back my earlier comments—a bit. It's still pretty over-determined, but I just play it fast and loose.

Poems

1. 2026-01-20

   herds of nightmares
   vault headland waves,
   bringing hell home

2. 2025-12-08

   lost leaves return
   for longest night,
   leaving at dawn

3. 2025-12-08

   fresh in disguise—
   skinned loggers' hides—
   dryads count coup

   ---

   Kinda tricky to identify the consonant sound that happens exactly 4 times here, maybe the sibilant “s” in “disguise”, “loggers”, “hides”, and “dryads”, or the kinda-hard “k/c/g” sound in “disguise”, “skinned“, “count”, and “coup”. At first I had this poem as “sly grey dryads / slit loggers' throats / disguised as wives”—but quickly rewrote it in this new form because it feels more interesting and complete, to me, on top of having a more playful phrasing.

4. 2025-10-23

   in the lighthouse,
   leashed lupine moons
   orbit the lamp

5. 2025-09-08

   clouds are creeping
   through cluttered skies,
   ankles cliff-high

6. 2025-05-10

   fall through fathoms
   of friendships lost,
   phantoms of smiles