Exploring sijo

 A bold blue jay perches waiting at my window

at feeding time.

He gets so excited, and calls to his jay friends 

and they arrive—

Stayed quiet, he could have had all the peanuts.

Now he has to share!


try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.


A sijo is not iambic pentameter,

it is longer.

Sijo has more syllables, fourteen to sixteen

to be exact—

I like the constrained sijo style.

It is a welcome change of pace.



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