Trilonnet: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the trilonnet, a quatorzain invented by Shelley A. Cephas.
After taking a brief break from poetic forms, it's time to dive into some more forms on Fridays for a while. Specifically, we're going to discuss the trilonnet in this post, which is a quatorzain (or 14-line poem that is not a sonnet) invented by Shelley A. Cephas.
Here are the guidelines:
- 14 lines
- Four unrhymed tercets (or three-line stanzas) and one rhyming couplet (or two-line stanza)
- Eight or 10 syllables per line (but should be consistent through the poem)
- Two possible rhyme schemes. Version A: abc/abc/abc/abc/dd. Version B: abc/cba/abc/cba/dd.
For my example attempt below, I used the rhyme scheme for version B. Click here to read a great example of version A on Rattle: "Fat Girl Trilonnet," by Stephanie Rogers.
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Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).
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Here’s my attempt at a Trilonnet Poem:
“the day after,” by Robert Lee Brewer
some mornings I feel like the walking dead
stumbling through a cemetery of grief
for the future that I thought I required
when I was still a member of the choir
and cocooned in my warm corpse of belief
unaware of gathering wolves ahead
prowling through the forests and fields of dread
infecting each blade of grass and tree leaf
with a fear that spreads fast as a wild fire
until the end is what we most desire
afraid we'll lose that as well to some thief
consuming the world just the way he said
in a voice as loud as the raging sea
"I will take what I want because I'm me"
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.
