Artwork: Painting of horses and hands from the Pech Merle cave. Gravettien. Replica in the Brno museum Anthropos.
Pech Merle is a cave which opens onto a hillside at Cabrerets in the Lot d' �??????�?????�????�???�??�?�©partement of the Occitania region in France, about 35 minutes by road east of Cahors. It is one of the few prehistoric cave painting sites in France that remain open to the general public. Extending for more than a mile from the entrance are caverns, the walls of which are painted with dramatic murals dating from the Gravettian culture (some 25,000 years BC). Some of the paintings and engravings, however, may date from the later Magdalenian era (16,000 years BC).


Quatern: A Quatern is a sixteen line French form composed of four quatrains. It has a refrain that is in a different place in each quatrain. The first line of stanza one is the second line of stanza two, third line of stanza three, and fourth line of stanza four. A quatern has eight syllables per line. It does not have to be iambic or follow a set rhyme scheme. It is speculated that this form has its inception in the middle ages, like the Retourne and Kyrielle, which are from that time period and bear similarities. (Adapted from Shadow Poetry and Poetry Magnum Opus)

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Curiously, I have yet to be able to find any adaptations or translations of quaterns in English that date back beyond the modern era. If anyone has further information on the development of this style, or any famous poets who wrote in this style, I'd be very interested if you'd like to share this information.

I hope you enjoy this one!
Kim

A NaPoWriMo article on French Poets: http://takelessons.com/blog/french-poets-z04

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