Quintilla: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the quintilla, a Spanish five-line form.
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the quintilla, a Spanish five-line form.
Quintilla Poems
The quintilla is a Spanish poetic form that, as you may have guessed from the name, uses five-line stanzas. Here are the guidelines:
- Five-line stanzas.
- Eight syllables per line.
- An ab rhyme scheme in which at least two lines use the "a" rhyme and at least two lines use the "b" rhyme...
- But the stanza cannot end with a rhyming couplet.
As such, these are the possible rhyme pattern variations:
- abaab
- ababa
- abbab
- aabab
- aabba
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Here’s my attempt at a quintilla:
clubbing, by Robert Lee Brewer
she woke up yesterday with stars
in her eyes and galactic dreams
of endless nights in space age cars
& a constellation of bars
where all she sees is as it seems
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
