Bob and Wheel

Note: The term, and maybe even the exact details, were only codified in the 19th century. See more info in Imagining the Bob and Wheel, an essay by Emma Maggie Solberg.

The bob and wheel is an English 5-line, rhyming, syllabic stanzaic form with an A/B/A/B/A rhyme pattern, in which the first line (the “bob”) has 2–3 syllables and the remaining 4 lines (the “wheel”) have 6 syllables. The form typically makes use of alliteration, e.g. 2–4 syllables per line in the wheel (often, but not always, at the start of words). It was famously used in the ballad Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Traditionally, it comes at the end of a strophe, with the bob ending the previous line. More recently, it's been used as a stand-alone form, with the bob starting a sentence and enjambing into the next line.

Poems

1. 2025-05-06
   CSI Biopcity

   Rewind,
   So sterile static lines
   Parade back into place,
   And with a whirr and whine
   They frame his frightful face.
   
   And PAUSE:
   For all his fatal flaws,
   This foe's my flesh and blood;
   The needy tumour gnaws
   And bursts out of its bud.

   ---

   I flipped the rhyme pattern in the wheel; it just kinda worked out that way.