Sajem Tan poetry

The poetry (Sajem Tan: veţyn, viţennoc) of the Sajem Tan language is an emerging tradition.

Syllabic meter
Some Sajem Tan poetry is based around constraints as to the number of syllables in each line. The traditional method of creating line constraints is to roll a d20 a number of times equal to the desired number of lines in the poem. Whatever number comes up each time is the number of syllables in that line. This tradition was introduced and is mainly practiced by Bird.

Bird meter
The most well-known form of syllabic poetry is known as Bird meter, after the tribemember Bird, who invented it. This meter was actually not made with a d20.

Bird meter features six lines of varying numbers of syllables, namely 6/9/11/23/9/6.

On August 28, 2016, Wind reported to the Listserv the creation of Bird meter and that he had written the first Bird meter poem, both of which events happened on the previous Gregorian day:

Bird meter is often met with dislike. The 23-syllable line is one reason for this controversy.

Alliterative poetry
In a discussion of March 2, 2019, Algae suggested that Sajem Tan poetry should be more centered on alliteration than on rhyme.

Whatever this is called
On March 2, 2019, during the aforementioned discussion, Algae also suggested the idea of couplets where the onset of each respective syllable alliterates; for example, see this poem by Fog: In both lines, the respective syllables begin with the onsets /j/, /ɮ/, /d/, /m/, /sn/, /f/, /θ/, even though the codas are different and the word boundaries are different. Another example of this type of poetry was written by Algae, using the pattern /sm/, /g/, /x/, /ʃ/:

Alliterative couplets with a rhyme at the end
On February 14, 2020, Fog created a poetic form based on the above form created by Algae. It consists of a number of alliterative couplets followed by an alliterating couplet ending in a rhyme, and the rhyming syllables do not alliterate. In the following example, the two last lines do not alliterate at all except in the first syllable. Fog may or may not have based this idea on an earlier alliterative couplet poem he posted on May 24, 2019, which does not alliterate perfectly and not at all intentionally in the last line:

Alliterative Bird meter
Some tribemembers have tried to combine the two traditions of Bird meter and alliterative poetry.

Fog came up with a system of writing Bird meter poems with alliteration and posted an example on February 28, 2020: In this poem, there are three "patterns", named A, B, C, and D. Each pattern has its own set of onsets, and each pattern is represented at least twice. These are the rules for this type of poem: In "Viţitâ nëmfê ţê", pattern A is /v/, /θ/, /Ø/. Pattern B is /n/, /f/, /θ/. Pattern C is /z/, /ʃ/, /x/, /k/, /z/, /Ø/, /d/, /ɮ/, /Ø/. Pattern D is /t/, /t/, /ɬ/, /Ø/, /k/, /g/, /ʃ/, /θ/, /θ/, /t/, /θ/.
 * Line 1: The first three syllables are pattern A, the last three are pattern B.
 * Line 2: All nine syllables are pattern C.
 * Line 3: All eleven syllables are pattern D.
 * Line 4: The first eleven syllables are pattern D, the next nine are pattern C, the last three are pattern B.
 * Line 5: same as line 2
 * Line 6: same as line 1

On March 25, 2020, Bird posted the beginnings of a stanza of Bird meter in which every word starts with the phoneme /d/.

Rhyming Couplets
Rhyming poetry does exist though. Rhyming words have similar vowels in their final syllables or identical vowels with different codas.

An example of this is the beginning of the song describing the construction and meaning of a traditional friendship quilt, first posted by Stone on June 26, 2020.