Couplet
Given the accumulative and paratactic nature of Mahri poetry, particularly powerful lines of poetry may be culled from a multiline poem and circulated as a couplet. Indeed, some longer poems may be heard as a series of couplets joined together for convenience. Conversely, two (or more) couplets may be joined together to form a brief poem. For instance, Race Relations in al-Mahra evokes an exchange of couplets, even though the “couplets” under consideration are in fact four to six lines long. It is thus worthwhile to think of couplets as the essential building block of longer poems which yet may stand on their own as coherent miniature poems.