The Terzanelle is a marriage of the Italian Terza Rima with the French Villanelle conceived by Lewis Turco in his "The Book of Forms”. This is a 19 line poem, consisting of five stanzas of three lines (tercets), and the final stanza having four lines (quatrain), in which the first and last lines of the first stanza are repeated as a refrain. In addition, other lines are repeated throughout, and a rhyme scheme comes into play:
The middle line of the each of the tercet stanzas is copied and becomes the last line of the following stanza and the first line of that stanza rhymes with it, thus making it an interlocking form. The lines are traditionally written in iambic pentameter, but instead of focusing on meter, I would suggest a consistent line length of 10 syllables.
Schema for stanzas 1 - 5
Line 1 - Rhyme A1
Line 2 - Rhyme B
Line 3 - Rhyme A2
Line 4 - Rhyme b
Line 5 - Rhyme C
Line 6 - Line 2 repeated (B)
Line 7 - Rhyme c
Line 8 - Rhyme D
Line 9 - Line 5 repeated (C)
Line 10 - Rhyme d
Line 11 - Rhyme E
Line 12 - Line 8 repeated (D)
Line 13 - Rhyme e
Line 14 - Rhyme F
Line 15 - Line 11 repeated (E)
The final stanza follows the same pattern as previously, with Line 1 becoming Line 17 and Line 3 becoming Line 19, completing the link back to the first stanza. Finally, Line 14 is repeated as Line 18.
Schema for stanza 6:
Line 16 - Rhyme f
Line 17 - Line 1 repeated (A1)
Line 18 - Line 14 repeated (F)
Line 19 - Line 3 repeated (A2)
I hope I have not added further complication to a complex form! I would suggest that you skip over to The Poet's Garret, where an example is laid out in a very comprehensive way.
While form challenges may not be to everyone's taste, we dedicate one post a month to those who do like to try their hands at them. Therefore, I ask that only new poems in the Terzanelle form be linked up here. Any unrelated poems will be removed from the Linky, with the reminder that a poem of your choice may be shared on Open Link Monday.
The pictures used for this post may be used on your blogs, so long as credit is given as follows in the order in which they appear:
photo credit: origami joel via photopin cc
photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc
photo credit: Shenghung Lin via photopin cc