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.
Wow Tricia, this was killer hard to do!
ReplyDeleteIn 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
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Gad. That looks HARD. Like crossing chess with a jigsaw puzzle. Okay, I'm going to try. Tomorrow. Back soon.
ReplyDeleteGreat analogy, Julie!
Delete