Monday, April 21, 2014

Monday Poetry Stretch - Tritina

I've been working on a series of longer form poems recently, namely the villanelle and sestina. Whenever I get stuck on the sestina, I go back and work on the tritina. 

Helen Frost has a number of helpful worksheets on poetic form on her web site. She suggests starting with the tritina since the sestina is a more difficult form. This is an idea I have taken to heart.

Here are the nuts and bolts of the form.
10-line poem made of three, 3-line stanzas and a 1-line envoi

There is no rhyme scheme but rather an end word scheme. It is:
A
B
C

C
A
B

B
C
A

A, B, and C (all in the last line/envoi)
So, the challenge for the week is to write a tritina. Won't you join us? Please share a link to your poem or the poem itself in the comments.

4 comments:

  1. How funny. I posted a tritina for Poetry Friday last Friday. Like this form. Will try another.

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  2. Thanks so much for the link to Helen's page. Those are great worksheets. I am working on a villanelle and this will be very helpful.

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  3. This is for Linda. We had dinner this evening. I only see her once every year or so since she lives far away, right now in Japan.

    Old Friend

    It’s good seeing an old friend.
    You remember the two of you,
    people from blurring stories.

    Now you share new stories.
    You are two new friends
    playing “Getting to know you.”

    It isn’t as if each of you
    were made of stories,
    or that stories make you friends.

    But friends make you into stories.

    —Kate Coombs, 2014
    all rights reserved

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  4. Well, that was fun and a wee bit challenging!

    DAYTIME ENTERTAINMENT

    My umbrella parachutes open
    Droplets tap dance on its roof –
    Protecting me from drizzle,

    As natures symphony drizzles
    My once cloudy visage opens
    Like a retractable roof,

    I then twist this handheld roof
    To dance to the rhythmic drizzle
    As clouds prepare to open,

    Sunlight opens so roof top drizzle can catch a breather.

    (c) Charles Waters 2014 all rights reserved.

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