Rictameter

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A rictameter is a nine-line syllabic structure typically used in poetry.

Form
The lines start at two syllables, incrementing upward by two to ten in the fifth line and then decreasing from tensyllables in the sixth line, to end with the same two syllable word as the first line.

Because this form involves a fixed syllabic count, it is a natural accompaniment with haiku and other fixed-syllabic poetry forms. It is reminiscent of the Cinquain invented by Adelaide Crapsey.

History
Created in the early 1990s by two cousins, Jason D. Wilkins and Richard W. Lunsford, Jr., engaged in regular poetic contest. This contest was the weekly practice of their self-invented order, The Brotherhood of the Amarantos Mystery, which was inspired by the movie Dead Poet's Society.

The first examples of the rictameter form to be made public were submissions made by Jason Wilkins to the website www.shadowpoetry.com in 2000. These are the first two poems created by both Jason D. Wilkins and his cousin, Richard Lunsford, Jr.

Satin

As your lips are

Pressed to mine as velvet

Soft and full with rounded sweetness

Two gentle petals alive with the night

Misted in the summer beauty

Of rains that shower love

'Pon your lips of

Satin

submitted by Jason D. Wilkins

Treasure

Placed in your view

So close but out of reach

Torturous to all your senses

For they each cry aloud to possess it

Their desires forever unquenched

For the things some want most

They cannot have

Treasure

submitted by Richard W. Lunsford, Jr.