Poets Online Archive -

When we started this prompt it was snowing here. Nature seems to really enjoy working in forms. No two of these snowflakes are exactly alike - but they are all hexagonal.

Poets enjoy playing with forms that declare themselves to be fixed. A triolet (rhymes with violet) is a poem or stanza of eight lines in which the first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eighth, with a rhyme scheme of A B a A a b A B (The capital letters in the rhyme scheme indicate the repetition of identical lines - see two samples below.)

The triolet is itself a variation on the Old French forms the rondel, roundel, and rondeau. Frederick Morgan's variation on the triolet takes liberty with the repeated lines but maintains the rhyme scheme.

Try a triolet maintaining the rhyme scheme and at least some degree of the repetition.

Want to learn more about these forms? try this link or these excellent books: Rules for the Dance : A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse by Mary Oliver; and also The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Form edited by Mark Strand & Eavan Boland

For more, visit the Poets Online blog.

TWO SAMPLES:
A traditional triolet...

SONG
I make my shroud but no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.
by Adelaide Crapsey

and a modified form of the triolet

1904

The things they did together, no one knew.
It was late June. Behind the old wood-shed
wild iris was in blossom, white and blue,
but what those proud ones did there no one knew,
though some suspected there were one or two
who led the others where they would be led.
Years passed -- but what they did there no one knew,
those summer children long since safely dead.
by Frederick Morgan

A CLAY WITHOUT MAN

Pressed to form, a clay without man
choreographed in strange ballet:
from Your fingers it all began,
pressed to form, a clay without man.
In the stained pulse of earth, you ran
faceless, voiceless to yesterday,
pressed to form, a clay without man
choreographed in strange ballet.

James M. Thompson

A VISIT TO THE DOCTOR OF HERBAL MEDICINE

She says, "You have the sadness in you."
She can see it in my dry, cracked hands.
My skin is raw with sorrow, it is true
what she says. "You have the sadness in you."
How can I hide it? Absence dries me through --
heart to knuckle-bones, I'm marked by its brands.
She says, "You have the sadness in you."
She can see it in my dry, cracked hands.

Laura Shovan

TRIOLET FOR VENUS

At its point furthest east of the sun,
Venus shines brightly in tonight's sky.
As it comes closer to us, rounding the sun,
it goes through moon phases, east of the sun
we see it shrink, turning day side to the sun.
The planet is catching up to us in the western sky.
Face southwest, arm thrust straight to the horizon-
find ancient love's light waiting four fists high.

Lianna Wright

DRIVE ON DOWN

And here we are, there we go
Down ever more roads paved with good intention-
The maps of our childhood only for show.
And here we are, there we go
Careening in circles, our baggage in tow;
Millennial citizens scorning history for reinvention.
And here we are, there we go
Down ever more roads paved with good intention.
Steven Bizel

COMRADES IN BLACK

If this were more than ordinary ink upon a page
would I have given, then, more than others gave
who (not being given, themselves, to outright rages)
left no more than merely ink, or less, upon a page?
No. We are but those who strut and fret on stages,
seek a lasting voice with which to voice a rant or rave
in common ink, no more, upon an ordinary page.
Oh, would that I have given as much as others gave.

Ron Lavalette

DINNER

We shared the silence,
slicing it in pieces.
We ate the silence
slowly, in small bites.
And when the meal ceases,
we fear the silence
which with our sadness increases.

Charles Michaels

TRIOLET

A poem or stanza of eight lines
Impels this 'poet to chart a scheme
of rhyme and meter that defines
her poem or stanza of eight lines.
A craftsman with no skill resigns
or slips into a simpler dream;
since a poem or stanza of eight lines
demands its poet to chart a scheme.

Catherine LeGault

BLIND

The blind man does not know
that something is in the air
until he feels the snow.
The blind man does not show
concern for what cannot change. So
that is something we share-
we blind men who do not row
against the current, who no longer care.

Ken Ronkowitz