Poetry formats

Square poems

leko nimi

The archetypical leko nimi is a short poem written in sitelen pona consisting of an equal amount of lines and words per line forming a square. The poem can then be read both horizontally (usually left-to-right) and vertically (usually top-to-bottom). How strict these rules apply to a particular poem is up to the author.

In an informal emoji reaction poll in the ma pona pi toki pona Discord server, 19 respondants knew about the format already, while 52 were new to the format, and 8 reported having made one.

The following is a list of leko nimi poems:

• "soweli", "kasi lili", "pu ala", and "waso" by jan Ali (p. 12)
• Untitled by kule epiku Atawan
• "toki musi pi nasin tu" by jan Ke Tami (p. 12)
• "tomo moku" by jan Likipi
• Untitled by waso Pini lon kulupu pi wawa sewi (Archived)

Letter squares

There are 39 possible letter squares with each line and each row being exactly one word, using words from Linku (with 2022 data).

Syllable squares

There are 335 possible syllable squares with each line and each row being exactly one word, and an additional 91 squares if coda -n gets counted separately (moraically), using words from Linku (with 2022 data).

The following is a list of syllable square poems:

• "kiwen lukin" by jan Kuleku Nena (p. 13)