Repeating Forms Packet

Villanelle 2 Elizabeth Bishop "One Art" Pantoum 3 Denise Duhamel "Lawless Pantoum" Sestina 4-5 Elizabeth Bishop "Sestina" Triolet 6 Thomas Hardy "How Great My Grief" Ghazal 7-8 Agha Shahid Ali "Arabic"

VILLANELLE

A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain.

ONE ART

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

PANTOUM

A Malaysian verse form comprising a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next. The second and fourth lines of the final stanza repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza. The modern pantoum is a poem of any length; the last line is often the same as the first. One exciting aspect of the pantoum is its subtle shifts in meaning that can occur as repeated phrases are revised with different punctuation and thereby given a new context.

LAWLESS PANTOUM

Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, as long as the animals are female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is taboo and punishable by death.

As long as the fish are female saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless. Adultery is punishable by death as long as the betrayed woman uses her bare hands to kill her husband.

Saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless, but the gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals in a mirror. The woman uses her bare hands to kill her husband, then his dead genitals must be covered with a brick.

The gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals in a mirror and never look at the genitals of a corpse— these genitals must be covered with a brick. The penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

A look at the genitals of a corpse will confirm that not much happens in that region after death. The penalty for masturbation is decapitation. It is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter at the same time.

To confirm what happens during sex, a woman’s mother must be in the room to witness her daughter’s deflowering, though it is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter at the same time. It is legal to sell condoms from vending machines as long as a woman’s mother is in the room to witness her daughter’s deflowering. Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals— why it’s even legal to sell condoms from vending machines, as long as everyone’s having sexual relations with a male animal. —Denise Duhamel SESTINA

The sestina is a complex form that achieves its often spectacular effects through intricate repetition. The sestina follows a strict pattern of the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though in its initial incarnation, the sestina followed a syllabic restriction. The form is as follows, where each numeral indicates the stanza and the letters represent end-words:

1. ABCDEF 2. FAEBDC 3. CFDABE 4. ECBFAD 5. DEACFB 6. BDFECA 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE

The envoi, sometimes known as the tornada, must also include the remaining three end- words, BDF, in the course of the three lines so that all six recurring words appear in the final three lines. In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of rhyme.

SESTINA

September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house were both foretold by the almanac, but only known to a grandmother. The iron kettle sings on the stove. She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child is watching the teakettle's small hard tears dance like mad on the hot black stove, the way the rain must dance on the house. Tidying up, the old grandmother hangs up the clever almanac on its string. Birdlike, the almanac hovers half open above the child, hovers above the old grandmother and her teacup full of dark brown tears. She shivers and says she thinks the house feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove. I know what I know, says the almanac. With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself about the stove, the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house

—Elizabeth Bishop

TRIOLET

The triolet is a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used throughout. The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end- words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme. Thus, the poet writes only five original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines.

French in origin, and likely dating to the thirteenth century, the earliest triolets were devotionals written by Patrick Carey, a seventeenth-century Benedictine monk. British poet Robert Bridges reintroduced the triolet to the English language, where it enjoyed a brief popularity among late-nineteenth-century British poets. Though some employed the triolet as a vehicle for light or humorous themes, Thomas Hardy recognized the possibilities for melancholy and seriousness, if the repetition could be skillfully employed to mark a shift in the meaning of repeated lines.

HOW GREAT MY GRIEF

How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! - Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee?

—Thomas Hardy

GHAZAL

The ghazal is composed of a minimum of five couplets—and typically no more than fifteen—that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous. Each line of the poem must be of the same length, though meter is not imposed in English. The first couplet introduces a scheme, followed by a refrain. Subsequent couplets pick up the same scheme in the second line only, repeating the refrain. The final couplet usually includes the poet's signature, referring to the author in the first or third person, and frequently including the poet's own name or a derivation of its meaning. Traditionally invoking melancholy, love, longing, and metaphysical questions, ghazals are often sung by Iranian, Indian, and Pakistani musicians.

ARABIC

The only language of loss left in the world is Arabic— These words were said to me in a language not Arabic.

Ancestors, you’ve left me a plot in the family graveyard— Why must I look, in your eyes, for prayers in Arabic?

Majoon, his clothes ripped, still weeps for Laila. O, this is the madness of the desert, his crazy Arabic.

Who listens to Ishmael? Even now he cries out: Abraham, throw away your knives, recite a psalm in Arabic.

From exile Mahmoud Darwish writes to the world: You’ll all pass between the fleeting words of Arabic.

The sky is stunned, it’s become a ceiling of stone. I tell you it must weep. So kneel, pray for rain in Arabic.

At an exhibition of Mughal miniatures, such delicate calligraphy: Kashmiri paisleys tied into the golden hair of Arabic

The Koran prophesied a fire of men and stones. Well, it’s all now come true, as it was said in the Arabic.

When Lorca died, they left the balcony open and saw: his qasidas braided, on the horizon, into knots of Arabic.

Memory is no longer confused, it has a homeland— Says Shammas: Territorialize each confusion into a graceful Arabic

Where there were homes in Deir Yassein, you’ll see dense forests— That village was razed. There’s no sign of Arabic.

I too, O Amichai, saw the dresses of beautiful women. And everything else, just like you, in Death, Hebrew, and Arabic.

They ask me to tell them what Shahid means— Listen: it means “The Beloved” in Persian, “witness” in Arabic.

—Agha Shahid Ali