Virelai: Poetic Forms
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the virelai, a French form with nine-line stanzas and alternating rhymes.
Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the virelai, a French form with nine-line stanzas and alternating rhymes.
Virelai Poems
The virelai is a French poetic form with alternating rhymes and line lengths. Here are basic guidelines:
- nine lines per stanza
- lines one, two, four, five, seven, and eight have five syllables
- lines three, six, and nine have two syllables
- the five-syllable lines rhyme with each other and the two-syllable lines rhyme with each other to make the following rhyme patter: aabaabaab
- the end rhyme for the short lines continues on in the following stanza
- the final stanza's short-line end rhyme should be the same as the long-line end rhyme in the opening stanza (to complete the end-rhyme circle)
Note on stanzas: This form can contain as few as two stanzas to infinity (if you could write that many). My example below has three stanzas, but this can change.
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Here’s my attempt at a virelai:
talk the talk, by Robert Lee Brewer
talkers like to talk
& walkers will walk
without
weighing who to block
or watching the clock
about
when to tick or tock
or pick up a rock
& shout
there's never a doubt
about the right route
to take
whether north or south
or straight from her mouth
to make
a smile into pout
or a with without
real fake
& see what's at stake
in a william blake
or mock
poem to forsake
near the shallow lake
we talk
about what we fake
when we'd rather take
a walk
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.
