Hello and welcome to the Poets Pub's poetry style challenges. Each month we will be challenging our members to write poetry in a new style. Have you ever written a sonnet, limerick, haiku, or BLITZ poem? Well now is your chance to exercise your p...
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Kennings Poem
What is a Kennings Poem?
To understand a Kennings Poem, you must first understand what a kenning is. A kenning is a compressed form of a metaphor (usually two words - "wave's horse" = "ship"), that vividly describe a noun or proper noun. The origins of the kenning can be found in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Icelandic poetry.
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The famous poem Beowulf has some great examples of kennings:
"whale-road" = the sea
"light-of-battle" = a sword
"battle-sweat" = blood
"raven-harvest" = a corpse
"ring-giver" = a king
"sky-candle" = the sun
Some more modern examples of kennings would be:
"rug-rat" = a child
"book-worm" = someone who reads a lot
"head-hunter" = someone who seeks out professionals for companies
"brain-storming" = coming up with ideas
"pig-skin" = football
"gum-shoe" = detective
So, we go back to our original question;
What is a Kennings Poem?
Of course, kennings can be inserted into any type of poem, however, a Kennings Poem is usually written in the form of a riddle employing kennings to describe the object of the poem; person place, thing or concept.
What is the structure of a Kennings poem?
A Kennings Poem consists of any number of stanzas, made up of two describing words. It can be made up of any number of Kennings.
