10-line Poem Challenge #13: Trianglet

It has been six weeks since my last decastich tutorial. But after a much-needed break from writing, I am back in the saddle and ready to resume this journey through the various 10-line poetic forms. What about you? Are you ready to study them with me? Great! Then let’s get started.

The Trianglet was created by Mina M. Sutherland.

• It is a decastich written in one stanza.
• The second half of the poem is a reflection of the first half in both its rhyme and its syllabic pattern.
• The lines have a syllabic pattern of: 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1.
• The rhyme scheme is: AbcxddxcbA.
• The poem begins and ends with the same one-syllable word (lines 1 & 10).

Samples

Below are two samples for you. Admittedly, this form was hard for me at first. Back in November I tried to write a couple trianglet poems, but wasn’t pleased with how any of them turned out. Finally, I decided to set my work aside and focus on the holidays, work, and getting over bronchitis. Apparently the rest did me much good, for when I came back to the trianglet, I was able to revise one of my first poems plus write three more—all in the same afternoon! I won’t say that the poems below would ever win a contest or please the eye of a publisher, but for myself, I was pleased with how they turned out, and I’m happy to say that the trianglet form has grown easier with use. On both of these, I opted to use a lower-case initial letter for the lines that did not begin a sentence or start with a word that should be capitalized, but you may do as you wish on yours.

Roads

Roads
take me
to places
I long to see,
connect me to friends.
Enthralled by the bends,
I take the course
that chases
country
roads.

Copyright © 2018 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

 

Joe

Joe,
have a
little shot
to warm your soul
and clear away haze
of cold winter days.
I’ll join you for
a nice hot
cuppa
Joe.

Copyright © 2018 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

 

It’s Your Turn!

Now it’s time for you to write a Trianglet. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

1. Think of a one-syllable word as your theme, and use that word in lines 1 and 10.
2. Write lines 8 and 9 first, then lines 2 and 3. I found it to be much easier to make the lines rhyme and sound natural by starting at the end of the poem.
3. Don’t be afraid to let lines 4 and 7 rhyme. Although the structure is set for them to be unrhymed, I did actually incorporate rhyme in one of my other trianglets. (Look for it later!). The rhyme scheme in that case would be AbcdeedcbA.
4. Be silly, sappy, or serious, your choice. There is no restriction on theme or mood.
5. And of course, when you are finished, please share it with us.

Don’t know how? Follow these simple steps…

1. Write your blog post.
2. Include the tag Decastich Challenge or 10LPC
3. Include a pingback to this post in your post so I can find you.
4. Publish your post.

Dig Deeper

To find more samples and to learn from those who taught me, check out these sites. All links open in a separate tab so you can easily find your way back here.

Poet’s Collective ~ The forms on this website are not organized in alphabetical order, but he does have at least one sample poem for each form, he even has tags for rhyme scheme. He also has a visual template for every form so you can see the rhyme scheme and stress patterns, as applicable. That is extremely helpful.

Sol Magazine ~ This resource covers much more than just 10-line poems.

“Metric Forms from Pathways for the Poet” ~ This is an outline of information from Pathways for the Poet by Viola Berg (1977), a book for and by educators. This resource also includes more than just 10-line poems, but it helped to fill in the gaps where my other sources were a bit scanty with their information.

Shadow Poetry ~ This is my favorite resource for learning about poetic forms (and not just the decastich), but I have discovered that there is ever so much more to learn than what I can find here. This is, however, a very good place to start.