by Tom Adam
I suppose I should start by apologizing for the cliché, but your prompt this week is to repeat yourself poetically. Repetition is one of the most important concepts in poetry. Songwriters understand this with their catchy choruses and repetition is very common in verse forms. Villanelles, sestinas, rondeaux and pantoum are all built on repetition. The very existence of rhyme scheme and meter are a form of repetition – an aural one.
Tiel’s comment on my post about the villanelle left me thinking about repetition and what effect it has. Tiel was absolutely correct to say “the challenge of the villanelle is to make the repetitions not just be repetitions — the poem should move ahead with each stanza.” No repetition in a poem should be just repetition. It is vital and important that the repetition explore a new possibility, otherwise, it’s just dull. Repetition is often used in an obsessive fashion, hence my statement — a broad generalization — about the obsessiveness of the villanelle.
The element of repetition forces the poem to come back to the beginning no matter what. The pantoum (the subject of my next column, published tomorrow) forces a halting motion through the constant backtracking of lines. Triolet are too short to go anywhere, even without using one line three times over. Sestinas talk about the same six things through seven verses.
The constant repetition in these forms says to the reader: This is what I want you to remember. Just like a catchy chorus, when someone thinks of a poem in a highly repetitious form, they are going to remember what they read or heard three or four or six times over.
It’s your chance, as a poet, to get something stuck in the reader’s head. The trade off is that you have to make it interesting enough to read over and over again.
Come back Monday night (just after midnight Central Standard Time) and post (a link to) the work you did for this prompt, or post (a link to) the work you did.
This is a great prompt, Tom. I like prompts that challenge my form. Lately I’ve been toying with mirrored poems, or palindromes. I found one called Doppleganger
by James A. Lindon, that recreates itself through the mirrored lines.
What I really would like to do with this prompt is learn how to repeat lines or phrases musically. I don’t do much of that when I write, and even though it’s a used and abused poetic device, it’s one I’d like to master!
I chose a poem I’d written recently that repeated a single word. I’ll admit it’s a tad cheesy but I like the sentiment: Just
Hi Phantom, poems for this post are posted next week, Monday starting just after midnight (CST). We post a get you poem on announcement.
Now to see if I can put my money where my mouth is
Another good repeating form is the kyrielle– usually made up of four-line stanzas where the last line of each stanza is always the same. Rhyme is optional, but if it rhymes it’s usually abaB where B is the refrain. Many popular songs have been written as kyrielles.
Tiel-
I’ve not heard of the kyrielle form. I shall have to look it up!
Christine-
Any form with repetition is hard, and I have to imagine a fully palindromatic poem would be torturous. Good luck with being musical.
I have to say that I’ve enjoyed the pantoums that your post has lead me to read. I agree with what you say about villanelles and obsessions. I do, however, find the sestina tedious although Elizabethh Bishop has written a good one. I would rather do a crossword puzzle than write one. I’m looking forward to attempting a pantoum.
[...] response to a Read Write Poem challenge to make use of repetition. Other responses are linked [...]
I don’t know if this works, but I does make me feel better!
http://beansthought.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-cant-be-true.html