Bayati
Bayati (Azerbaijani: Bayatı) is one of the oldest forms of Azerbaijani folk poetry. They are seven syllable. Anonymous bayati have been collected as folk wisdom in editions such as Xalqimizin deyimlari va duyumlari (Our people's sayings and feelings). Bayati can also form longer poems, and there are several bayati dastan, epics, where all of the verse is bayati, such as Arzu-Qamber.[1]
Some folklorists associate the bayati with women's folk creativity, but male ashigs compose bayati as well. Intriguingly, some scholars argue that the bayati dastan are from a lost repertoire of women's dastan, but so far there is no firm evidence to support this theory. In the Zagatala region of northern Azerbaijan, male and female ashiqs who play the tanbur sing poetry composed only in the bayati meter.[1]
References
- 1 2 Anna C. Oldfield. Azerbaijani Women Poet-minstrels: Women Ashiqs from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. P. 60.