Thanbauk

Note: I don't know what the plural for this is.

The thanbauk is an often-epigrammatic Burmese 3-line, rhyming, syllabic form in which each line has 4 syllables. The rhyme “climbs” along the lines: the fourth syllable of the first line, third syllable of the second line, and second syllable of the third line. Here's a syllable-by-syllable demo of the rhyme pattern (“x” means a non-rhyming syllable):

x–x–x–A/
x–x–A–x/
x–A–x–x

The form can be stand-alone or used as the building block of a longer poem, in which the fourth syllable of the third line starts off a new “climbing rhyme”. The rhymes never reach the first syllable; they stop after three repetitions.

See also the yadu, another Burmese poetic form with a similar rhyming structure.

Poems

1. 2025-11-02

   quick wits elude
   with slick rudeness
   the moods of kings

2. 2025-05-11

   executives
   slice a sliver
   to give us pause