Song That Luc Bat
Quick answer: Song that luc bat is Vietnam's double-seven six-eight stanza, the form of great laments. Learn its syllable counts, rhyme chain and how to write it.
Grief asked Vietnamese poetry for a bigger room, and song that luc bat is what it got. The name means 'double seven, six eight': a four-line stanza of two seven-syllable lines followed by a standard luc bat couplet of six and eight syllables. Where plain luc bat rocks steadily forward, the paired seven-syllable lines open each stanza with a harder, more declamatory step, and the stanzas link into chains that can sustain hundreds of lines of sorrow.
This is the metre of the great Vietnamese laments, the ngam. The Song of a Soldier's Wife, rendered into this form in the eighteenth century in a version associated with Doan Thi Diem, and Nguyen Gia Thieu's Complaint of a Palace Maid both use it to hold long, circling grief. If luc bat is Vietnam's storytelling voice, song that luc bat is its mourning voice.
The lament metre of the eighteenth century
Song that luc bat matured in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the age of Vietnam's verse laments. Its most famous vehicle, Chinh Phu Ngam, the Song of a Soldier's Wife, began as a Chinese-language poem by Dang Tran Con; the celebrated Vietnamese rendering in song that luc bat, traditionally credited to the poet Doan Thi Diem though some scholars argue for Phan Huy Ich, turned it into a classic recited for generations. Nguyen Gia Thieu's Cung Oan Ngam Khuc, the complaint of a discarded palace concubine, confirmed the stanza as the shape Vietnamese sorrow takes.
The stanza, syllable by syllable
Each stanza runs 7, 7, 6, 8 syllables, and the rhymes bind both the lines and the stanzas into a chain.
A practical method in English
Work stanza by stanza and track rhymes in the margin. Draft the two seven-syllable lines as a self-contained gesture, an image or cry, with the first line's end-sound echoed inside the second. Then let the six-eight couplet answer more softly, the way a sob settles into breathing. Chain the stanza's last sound into the opening line of the next stanza, and keep the chain unbroken.
The alternation of hard couplet and rocking couplet is the form's meaning. Use the sevens for intensity, protest, the sharp memory; use the six-eight for reflection, resignation, tenderness. A lament in this form breathes in and out, stanza after stanza.
Its natural subjects, and the usual failure
Song that luc bat exists for sustained emotional address: mourning, separation, waiting, complaint against fate. It suits dramatic monologue better than plot. Beginners typically ruin it by treating the four lines as interchangeable, losing the contrast between the declaimed sevens and the sung six-eight. If every line carries the same temperature, the stanza's inner weather disappears, and with it the reason for choosing this form over plain luc bat.
What poets can take from this
- Write the syllable counts 7-7-6-8 at the top of your page and check every stanza against them.
- Give the seven-syllable pair the stanza's sharpest emotion and the six-eight couplet its reflection.
- Track the five rhyme links of each stanza in the margin as you go.
- Keep one speaker throughout; the form is a voice, not a camera.
- Use slant rhyme freely at the mid-line positions.
- Read the Song of a Soldier's Wife in translation before writing a long piece.
Try it yourself
Write six linked song that luc bat stanzas in the voice of someone waiting for a video call from a war zone, letting the seven-syllable lines carry fear and the six-eight couplets carry memory.
Questions
How is song that luc bat different from luc bat?
Luc bat is a continuous chain of six-eight couplets. Song that luc bat builds four-line stanzas: two seven-syllable lines first, then a six-eight couplet, with extra rhyme links inside and between stanzas. The added sevens give it a more declamatory, lament-like movement.
What kind of poem suits song that luc bat best?
The sustained lament or dramatic monologue: grief, separation, longing, complaint. Vietnamese tradition used it for the great ngam poems voiced by waiting wives and abandoned palace women, and it still works best when one voice speaks at length.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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