Distillations: Repeating Forms

The act of repetition is one of the paradoxes of poetry. In the confined world of a poem, what is the use of redundancy? However wasteful it may seem, there are many poetry forms built around obligatory patterns of repetition. In this column, we will explore two rather different forms, the villanelle and the triolet, and see how two poems make the best use of this constraint.

“Villanelle for the Ages” by Matthew Masucci appears in the Winter 2008 issue of Astropoetica. The villanelle is one of the most restrictive forms with both repeating lines and a separate rhyme scheme that is followed even on the non-repeating lines. Briefly, the entire first line is repeated on the sixth, twelfth, and eighteenth lines. The entire third line is repeated on the ninth, fifteenth, and nineteenth lines. This means that the repeating lines appear in alternating stanzas and then together as the last two lines of the poem. Also, the poem follows an aba//aba//aba//…abaa rhyme scheme which means that the repeating lines must also rhyme.

In Masucci’s poem, the repeating lines are:

It is about the distances computed by parallax
…
The force of recognition, the perspective that we lack

These lines are bare statements which declare the subject of the poem. As in many fixed forms, the repeating lines act as the bones of a poem. Taken by themselves they are interesting, but not enough to make a memorable poem. The real power comes when they are combined with the images which fill in that skeleton: “pulsar lighthouses, quasar radios….swarming disks of nebulous gas.” The fixed and free lines loop around each other and provide an added level of complexity.

In addition, even though the lines are the same, they have slightly different meanings depending on the surrounding stanza. Compare the effect of the second fixed line, “The force of recognition, the perspective that we lack,” when it follows “…the bend of this tiny blue planet /” and “I try to see beyond this life, beyond this world, past /”. In the first example, the poem is referring to our origins on Earth vs life in the greater universe, but in the second example, the meaning has changed to contrast this life and the next. When done right, this doubling effect causes a resonance in the reader’s mind.

So why aren’t there more villanelles? The quick answer is because they are hard. However, they are also hard to write well. The repeating lines can either trap the poet in a box of nonsense or lead to a sing-song effect. The triolet is another form that uses repeating lines, but it is more compact and often humorous.

Terrie Leigh Relf’s triolet, “Why She Canceled Her Online Dating Membership: A Martian Female Responds” from Strange Horizons is a good example of a poem that is just out to have some fun. Before we get too far into analysis of the poem itself, note the title. Note the fact that it is not restricted as to rhyme, repetition, or length. Usually a poet tries to be somewhat subtle about sneaking in a few extra syllables outside the rules, but here Relf is taking blatant advantage of this loophole. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the length of the title sets the tone almost as well as the words of the title itself.

A triolet has eight lines with a rather irregular rhyme scheme, abaaabab. The first two lines are repeated as the last two lines and the first line is also the fourth line. The repeating lines make up over half the poem. At this point, the repetition is more than the bones of the poem. It threatens to take over the poem entirely. The trick, as Relf has discovered, is to go with the flow.

Relf’s triolet begins with “You ask why I’ll no longer date a human? / I have my reasons among them this:”. Observant readers will now also know how the poem ends. The interior poem contains a few digs at humans, “they lack commitment, fear eternal bliss,” and it begins with the same flippant tone with which it began. In this way, the form is providing a justification for the alien’s casual airs.

The villanelle and triolet are quite different forms, but in each of them, repetition provides a structure for the effect that a poet is trying to create. It is inside this structure that a poet can make changes. There are advantages to make up for every constraint that a fixed form provides. The problem for the poet is to decide which advantages he or she needs and which constraints will help the poem rather than hurt it.