Monday, November 16, 2015

Monday Poetry Stretch - Terzanelle

What do you get when you cross a terza rima and a villanelle? The answer is a poetic form called a terzanelle.

A terzanelle uses the villanelle’s form of five triplets and a quatrain with the interlocking rhyme scheme of the terza rima.

Here is the line pattern and rhyme scheme.

1 a1
2 b1
3 a2

4 b2
5 c1
6 repeat line 2

7 c2
8 d1
9 repeat line 5

10 d2
11 e1
12 repeat line 8

13 e2
14 f1
15 repeat line 11

16 f2
17 repeat line 1
18 repeat line 14
19 repeat line 3


You can read more about the terzanelle at Form and Formlessness.

I hope you'll join me this week in writing a terzanelle. Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

3 comments:

  1. Wow Tricia, this was killer hard to do!


    In the Night

    I woke in the night and snow was falling,
    a quiet invasion of white and cold,
    the voiceless sound of winter calling.

    The year and I have both grown old.
    Our bodies tremble each December,
    a quiet invasion of white and cold.

    I find that I can’t quite remember
    the time when I was steady and strong.
    Our bodies tremble each December

    and often a day is a century long.
    I used to be made of blue-sky spring,
    the time when I was steady and strong.

    And now the snow is listening
    to the slowing beat of my careful heart.
    I used to be made of blue-sky spring,

    back in the time when I got my start.
    I woke in the night and snow was falling
    to the slowing beat of my careful heart,
    the voiceless sound of winter calling.

    —Kate Coombs, 2015
    all rights reserved

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  2. Gad. That looks HARD. Like crossing chess with a jigsaw puzzle. Okay, I'm going to try. Tomorrow. Back soon.

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