I’m not exactly ashamed to admit a long-lived obsession with the villanelle, but this has consistently proven itself an unfortunate affair: the passion seems to be very much unrequited. 

I’ve written innumerable first, second and tenth drafts that are, at best, horrifying—the latest failure included the word “tin” as an end-rhyme of a repeating line, which I’ll admit to despite Johnathon’s tactful and somewhat anonymous earlier reference—and I’ve always claimed that if I wrote one good villanelle, I would quit poetry altogether. While I certainly realize the benefit this would have for the poetry world at large, I assure you that there is no need to pop those corks quite yet.

However, from a recently attained copy of Patterns of Poetry by Miller Williams, I believe I may have developed a wandering eye. The latest infatuation: the terzanelle.

In his introduction to the form, Williams writes that this form is “French in origin, originally syllabic with lines of equal length. A nineteen-line poem, of five triplets and one quatrain, akin to both terza rima and the villanelle. Lines 1 and 3 are repeated as lines 17 and 19 or 18 and 19, depending on the resolution chosen by the poet. The middle line of each triplet reappears as the final line of the following triplet, except in the case of the final triplet (the penultimate stanza), after which its middle line appears as the third or first line of the final quatrain, depending on the form of the resolution.”

In short: it’s slightly ridiculous.

If you’re like me and need to see this spelled out A¹  B  A^2,, Wikipedia has—of course—the entire scheme mapped out. If you would just like to read a lovely example, Williams cites “Thunderweather” by Lewis Turco. As a warning, this link does seem to lead to a personal blog, but it’s the best copy of the poem I could find online.

Regardless, I seem to have found a new way to fail miserably, which is always exciting.