Leaning into poetic form
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Terza Rima, Inside Outside
The branches of the apple tree are bare,
the grasses catch the breeze and nod their heads.
Small terrors wait to catch me unaware,
as deep and dark inside as bulbs in beds
that press and push to free their papery skin
as over them the weight of sunlight treads.
I have my knots and trapdoors held within:
a little girl that’s tethered and afraid,
a game of chase she knows she’ll never win.
The playground where the daily games are played
has gravel that will sting on knees that fall.
The playground where the subtle rules are made
is where she needs to plant the flowers, small
and fragrant held within a gentle wall.
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Terza rima is an Italian poetic form, adopted by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy (c.1310) and introduced into English poetry in the 16th century. For a beautiful modern example, see Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Terza Rima, SW19’ (2016).
~ ~ ~
I wrote ‘Terza Rima, Inside Outside’ this morning, using terza rima, following a six-minute free-write into what I was feeling and what I could see outside in my garden. Terza rima poems are formed of any number of three-line stanzas, with a two-line stanza at the end. Each line has ten or eleven (or any repeated number) of syllables, and the stanzas follow an interlocking rhyme scheme: ABA BCB CBC DED EE. The sound at the end of the middle line in each stanza rhymes with the word at the end of the first and last line of the next stanza, and so on until the final stanza, which takes its rhyme from the middle line of the preceding one.
I enjoy writing in form from time to time, finding it both containing and liberating, where the ‘constraints, parameters, or suggestions can make the task of writing more, rather than less, accessible’ (Field, 2006: 123). I like the playful challenge it offers, making me grasp for words I might not otherwise reach for to express things I want to get out on the page and into the light. I sometimes compose haiku in my head when I’m running, but I have to reach for pencil, paper and eraser (or the computer keyboard) for most other forms. A comprehensive list of poetic forms is presented here, including Welsh, Irish, French, Chinese, North American, Japanese, Israeli, Spanish and Malayan forms among many others:
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/list-of-50-poetic-forms-for-poets
With terza rima, looking for the next rhyme pushes me on as I write. I enjoy this feeling of being pulled forward, of needing to keep going, to see what unfolds on the page. I have to scan my vocabulary for where I might travel next such that I stay within the constraint of form while staying true to personal meaning. Writing ’Terza Rima, Inside Outside’, the rhymes led me on in my explorations. The grass heads above ground made me think of the bulbs in their beds below ground, which took me to the image of a thick, warm sunlight that treads the soil; the bulbs’ outer skin made me think of a young self within me, who is afraid of not always understanding the feelings evoked in relationship to others, remembering games played and rules made when she was younger, and how they affect her adult self today.
A parallel process was happening as I tapped out the syllables in order to build the lines, as I sought to balance the tight rhythmic rule I’d set myself with free, authentic self-expression. Dante’s Italian (like French, Spanish, Turkish and Cantonese, among others) is a syllable-timed language, meaning that each syllable is pronounced with equal stress, while English (along with German, Persian, Russian and others) is stress timed. To get a sense of English as a stress-timed language, try reading the piece below out loud (which unexpectedly became a concrete poem as I wrote it). Notice how the stressed words hold their position in time, while the unstressed ones accommodate themselves obligingly.
Air, soil, space, light.
I need air, soil, space, light.
I need air, soil, space and light.
I need air and soil and space and light.
I need the air and the soil and the space and the light.
I need air and soil and space and light.
I need air, soil, space and light.
I need air, soil, space, light.
Air, soil, space, light.
Most poets writing terza rima in English use Iambic pentameter (oO oO oO oO oO), which suits the stress-timed nature of English. I attempted to use Iambic pentameter in mine:
The branches of the apple tree are bare,
the grasses catch the breeze and nod their heads.
Small terrors wait to catch me unaware
Re-reading this stanza a few hours later, I was struck how I’d unconsciously ‘broken the rule’ in line 3: the small of my small terrors not being as small (unstressed) as I had thought. Spotting how my unconscious (expression-focussed) mind had overridden my conscious (Iambic-pentameter-focussed) mind was moment of small but significant insight for me, a recognition of my tendency to downplay as ‘small’ the fears that sometimes hijack my thinking.
It is because of their ‘gentle walls’ of pressure, the creativity they release in me and the insights they bring forth that I will continue to experiment with poetic form, leaning into it for guidance, security, challenge, resistance and insight.
References
Alighieri, D. (c.1310/2009) The Divine Comedy. Translated by Cary, H.F. Wordsworth Editions: Ware
Duffy, C. A. (2016) ‘Terza Rima, SW19’ in Standing Female Nude. Picador: London
Field, V. (2006) ‘Writing in poetic form’ , in Bolton, G., Field, V. and Thompson, K. (eds.) (2006) Writing Works. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Writer’s Digest (2021) ‘List of 168 poetic forms for poets’. Available at https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/list-of-50-poetic-forms-for-poets [Accessed 31 January 2022]