The Concept of Investigating

The Concept of Investigating is a poetic riddle intended to make an apology, originating in The Coati of Shedding. The rules of the form are applied by poets to produce individual poems which can be recited. The poem is divided into three distinct parts: four quatrains, five tercets and three to four sexains. Use of internal rhyme and vivid imagery is characteristic of the form. A form of parallelism is common throughout the poem, in that certain lines often share an underlying meaning.

• The first part concerns the past. The fourth line of each quatrain must expand the idea of the third line. It has lines with three feet with a syllable weight pattern of short-short-long (quantitative anapaestic trimeter). The rhyme scheme within each stanza is a1bb, where numbers indicate a refrain.
• The second part concerns current events. The third line of each tercet must expand the idea of the second line. It has lines with four feet with a syllable weight pattern of short-short-long (quantitative anapaestic tetrameter). The rhyme scheme repeating in each stanza is aab.
• The third part concerns the future. The fourth line of each sexain must expand the idea of the first line. It has lines with five feet with a syllable weight pattern of long-short-long (quantitative cretic pentameter). The rhyme scheme within each stanza is a11bbb.

Events