Enqutsi poetry

Enqutsi poetry is poetry typical of Enqusqo that is written, spoken, sung, or chanted in the Enqutsi language which includes Classical Enqutsi, High Enqutsi, and Modern Enqutsi. Poetry of a similar style is also written in the other languages spoken on the Enqusqan peninsula, however, these are commonly referred to, in sum with Enqutsi poetry, as Enqusqan poetry. The Enqutsi poetic tradition originated in the form of folk poetry and proverbs, which comprise the earliest textual archaeological evidence on the peninsula. Enqutsi poetic structures include tsítsa, mumón and various other styles shared with closely associated cultures around the Kidal Sea. More recently and particularly during the evertist movement of the 20th century, tight poetic structural traditions have been broken in favour of new free-verse styles.

With the exception of these free-verse poems, the other forms have a certain structure. The tightest and oldest of these forms is the éntsítsa, in which structures of content, number of syllables per line, lines per poem and rhythm are all defined by the form of the poem. This tightly constrained structure restricted the use of the poetry to the upper classes and academics of classical Enqutsi society.

Mythology
According to Quramín mythology, poetry has it's origins in the goddess Lexín, who is said to have taught people to speak by singing poetry to them. As Lexín moved across the world she would grow bored of her old poem and so would change the words as she went, teaching these new and different words to the new and different people she encountered. According to this myth, this is why there are poems, music and languages in the world.

Beginnings
The Enqutsi seemingly had a long oral tradition dating back to the earliest settlements attributed to their culture on the Enqusqan peninsula. With the adoption of writing from the Dinuuens it appears these oral traditions quickly began to be transcribed into tables and megaliths at numerous classical period sites. These stones used a primitive form of poetry that while less common is still used by poets in the modern day, éntsítsa. At archeological digs throughout the 19th century most of these tablets were damaged to the point of being unrecognisable as éntsítsa poetry, instead being classified as the much shorter tsítsa poem, from where they took their name, tsítsa stones. This changed upon the discovery of the oldest set of tsítsa stones in Sínyólon. Across these 23 tablets was a grand éntsítsa poem telling the tale of the mythic First Kingdom of Enqusqo.

Overtime, these éntsítsa poems were becoming shorter, containing fewer verses until they stopped at their modern constraint of no more than 11 verses and no fewer than 9.

Póo Mín dynasty
The founder of the Póo Mín dynasty, Póo Mín Tsetli, was a prolific poet in her youth and was often chastised by her tutors for her sloppy grasp of proper poetic form. Her love of poetry didn't cease after her ascension to the throne of the Second Kingdom of Enqusqo and the royal court was reportedly filled with as many poets as admirals.

Along with her reforms to the military, navy and society of the peninsula under her rule, she fostered a more tolerant approach to poetry, often favouring and sponsoring poets who didn't conform to the traditions of the previous century. Two new poetic forms arose from her patronage of poets at court. The first is said to have come from a game she would enjoy playing with courtiers wherein one person would propose a line of poetry consisting of a short number of syllables, and another would respond to this call with their own line, following the rhyme and syllable scheme of the call. These short poems, now known as vane, slowly become more formalised and began to be written down collaboratively by several poets.

The second poetic form came from an adaptation of the final stanza of an éntsítsa poem, called the cliff (Enqutsi: mupó), which is structurally different from the tsítsa that form the bulk of the poem. Poets began to forego the bulk of the éntsítsa and instead focus on the mupó. The resulting poetic form became as complex as the éntsítsa, acting as a condensed form of the themes that were often spread across multiple stanzas. The poems had to conform to a strict 4-6-4 structure, with the inclusion of a topic word, theme word, setting word and turning word which was selected from an increasingly prescriptive list of words. Whilst Póo Mín Tsetli was alive, these restraints seemed more like guides than rules, however, under the other members of her dynasty, the poems became strictly regimented. Numerous poets were subjected to public ridicule when their poems failed to meet the standard of the day.

Prosody
As in most metrical systems, the Enqutsi metre is structured both by the count and the character of syllables. Whereas in Alutran poetic tradition syllables are categorised by relative stress or length, in Enqutsi verse syllables are categorised by tone. For the purposes of metre, the four tones of Enqutsi are either considered to be 'dull' or 'sharp'. Thus a line of metrical verse consists of a specific number of syllables, some of which must be dull, some of which must be sharp, and some of which can be either dull or sharp.

Like in other traditional forms of poetry, Enqutsi verse is traditionally rhymed. The combination of metre and rhyme scheme helps define the various forms in which the poem is written.

Vowels and tones
The vowels of Enqutsi can each take one of four tones. The tones are grouped according to their perceived nature, with the two-level tones, high and low, being considered dull (♭). The two contoured tones, falling and rising, are on the other hand considered to be sharp (♯).

Enqutsi vowels also carry phonemic character in their nasality, these nasal vowels are conceptualised as distinct vowels by Enqutsi poets.

Rhyme
The use of rhyme in Enqutsi poetry is largely analogous to its usage in poetry in other languages. The major differences lie in the inclusion of tone into the quality of a rhyme and the prolific use of back rhyme, where a syllable at the end of one line rhymes with a syllable in the middle of the next line. Rhyme acts to join the lines of a poem together, almost always appearing on the end of a line, although it also frequently appears in syllables contained within a line.

An Enqutsi syllable can have both an optional onset and coda consonant, giving quite a wide array of possible rhyming couplets. The combination of the nucleus and the coda is what forms the rhyme of the syllable. A true rhyme occurs between syllables with varied onsets but identical rhymes. However, the quality of this rhyme can be further discussed due to other salient features of the syllable in Enqutsi.

Rhyming syllables do not require that their tones be identical, instead that they fall within the same class: all dull or all sharp. Dull rhymes are said to create a soothing nature within the poem, whereas sharp rhymes are more energetic. When the tones are identical across the rhyme, this is called a rich rhyme, when they differ the rhyme is considered to be poor.

Due to the syllable structure of Enqutsi, there is also a tolerance for slant or half rhymes, where the nucleus of the syllable remains the same and the coda is similar in sound. Another type of slant rhyme can occur between similar-sounding vowels, which is exclusively tolerated between pairs of nasal vowels and their non-nasal counterparts. The most unpleasant-sounding rhyme is a poor, slant rhyme, which is sometimes used to elicit feelings of unease in the poem.

Tsítsa
A tsítsa is a poetic form consisting typically of a single stanza with a 4-8-8-6 syllable pattern. There are two forms of tsítsa poem, depending on the nature of the tone scheme used. A poem with a sharp back rhyme is considered to be a sharp tsítsa, whereas a poem with a dull back rhyme is a dull tsítsa.

The tsítsa poem is derived directly from the éntsítsa form and by virtue of conventionally being comprised of a single stanza, is often much less complex and constrained than other forms of traditional poetry. The content of a tsítsa is free so long as the structural features are met.

In the evertist movement, some poets created a derived form of tsítsa called tsátsi, which has the same structure as a tsítsa, just flipped to be 6-8-8-4.

Mumón
Mumón poetry arose under the Póo Mín dynasty and became a favourite of Póo Mín Nyaru during her childhood. Mumón poems are derived from the mupó stanza at the end of an éntsítsa poem. They are considered to be condensed forms of éntsítsa poems and a skilled poet, if given enough time could condense any éntsítsa into a mumón.

The poetic form consists, like a tsítsa poem, of a single stanza but this stanza follows the syllable pattern of 4-6-4. The stanza must also contain words, chosen from prescribed lists, that indicate the topic, theme and setting of the poem, with a further word intended to shift the listener's view of the poem. These words are intended to be subtle and unobvious to the uneducated, yet still transparent enough to carry their intended message through the poem.

Poetical devices
A wide array of poetic devices are used in Enqutsi poetry to convey meaning and emotion. With prose being largely constrained to the realm of non-fiction within Enqutsi society, poetry filled the creative void left by the absence of fiction. Most literary devices used in Enqutsi today have their origins in poetry and it is believed that poetry had a large impact on the development of the language.

Onomatopoeia
Enqutsi poetry takes advantage of its musical nature through the use of numerous examples of onomatopoeic words. Often these words carry the rhyme in a poem and are thus central to the melody of the verse. Onomatopoeia is also used as a source of imagery within poems, and can much more effectively convey sensation to the listener in the confined forms that many Enqutsi poems take.

Wordplay
Another common feature of Enqutsi poetry is wordplay. Wordplay is a form of wit in which words become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Often this would manifest as puns, rhetorical excursions, unusual sentence structure and double-entendres.

Humour
Humour is often used within Enqutsi poetry. Largely this is achieved with wordplay, although sometimes rhetorical features such as irony and satire are used to create humour within a piece. Occasionally, parody is also used to build a humorous tone within a poem.

Rhythm
The rhythm of poems in Enqutsi is often manipulated to preserve the musicality of the poems. As Enqutsi poetry has a preference for even numbers of syllables in each line, most rhythms are organised into groups of twos and fours depending on the sentence structure and rhyme within the poem. Rhythm is often abandoned in favour of the rhythm of natural speech within free-verse, modern poems.

Riddles
An interesting use of poetry came about shortly after the fall of the Póo Mín dynasty that incorporated elements of short-verse poetry with éntsítsa. Still imitating the call-and-response nature of short-verse poems, these riddles would contain tricks and cultural references often intended to teach a lesson to the listener, who was expected to respond to the call with their own riddle. These riddles were often paradoxical or nonsensical in nature and were used to coyly express inner sentiments. As such they became popular as a method of courtship, where one individual would attempt to out-riddle the other in order to win their affection.

The riddles also found their use within the classroom where they could be used to help instruct students to learn complex topics such as philosophy, ethics and mathematics.