A lot of poets enjoy writing in Tri meter (Three feet) or six sound units and Tetra meter (Four feet) or eight sound units and so this form should make a reasonable challenge for them. Some of you who prefer lyric style poetry might find this form useful as well as challenging because it lends itself quite nicely to some styles of story telling also.

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. I cannot understand why as it is challenging without being too difficult.

The odd lines (1,3,5,etc) are six sound units and the even lines (2,4,6 etc) are eight sound units long, hence the title. The rhyming scheme is simple also. The last word (sixth sound unit) of the odd lines rhymes with the sixth sound unit of the even line and the eighth sound unit rhymes with the sixth unit of the next odd line. The final even line, linking back to the first line. I'm sure you can see the French influence here. A twelve line poem would have a pattern like that shown below.