Poetry challenge #16: Triolet

First, apologies if I don’t reply/haven’t replied to all my notifications. It’s not meant as a snub; I’m having big problems with mail and have to go a roundabout way to access anything let alone reply. Hope to get it sorted out soon.

I know this is a more difficult form, not so much for the rhymes—there aren’t many—but getting the meaning of the refrain to shift slightly.

For the basic form of the triolet:

Eight line stanza

Eight beats to the line, or nine/seven if it sounds better

The first line is the refrain and is repeated as the fourth and the seventh line.

The second line is repeated as the eighth line so the first and last couplets are the same.

The rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB. The capitals denote repeated lines.

If that sounds obscure, the wikipedia explanation is here along with an example of a triolet by Thomas Hardy

Your mission etc etc is to write a triolet inspired by the painting below. If it helps, you can start it with:

The last words

but only if it helps. The triolet of mine is an example. The shift in meaning comes with the changed punctuation. It’s the hardest part to get to work, and it doesn’t always. I hope you’ll give this challenge a try; it’s very satisfying when it comes out right 🙂 You have a whole week, so get thinking about it, and post in the comments when you’re ready.

Painting ©Marta Shmatava

The last words ever I heard you say,

This rose is barbed with fearsome light,

And midnight gleamed as bright as day.

The last words ever I heard you say,

Before you turned and walked away,

They turned my heart to stone that night.

The last words ever, I heard you say.

This rose is barbed with fearsome light.

Advertisement