Countless Stars On The Sky **** (The Luc Bat) Poem by Harindhar Reddy

The Luc Bat is a Vietnamese form of poetry, which simply means “six eight.” You can see there was an influence by the French as it was The Colony of Indo China before it became Vietnam. It was introduced into Europe by the French, but for some reason never became popular.

The odd lines (1,3,5, etc.) are six syllables long, and the even lines (2,4,6 etc.) are eight syllables long, hence the title of the form. The rhyme scheme is simple as well. The last word (sixth syllable) of an odd line rhymes with the sixth syllable of the even line and the eighth syllable rhymes with the sixth syllable of the next odd line. The final even line rhymes back to the first line. A twelve line poem would have a pattern like that shown below.

OOOOOA
OOOOOAOB
OOOOOB
OOOOOBOC
OOOOOC
OOOOOCOD
OOOOOD
OOOOODOE
OOOOOE
OOOOOEOF
OOOOOF
OOOOOFOA