Poetry Forms

Trilonnet

The Trilonnet is a form I found on www.shadowpoetry.com. The Trilonnet is a 14-line poetry form created by Shelley A. Cephas.

The Trilonnet consists of five stanzas - the first four stanzas are three-lined stanzas (triplets) and the concluding stanza is a couplet (two lines).

The form requires either iambic tetrameter or iambic pentameter. The three-lined stanzas are not rhymed within themselves, but are linked together with a rhyming scheme and the couplet has its own rhyme. There are two options for the rhyme scheme of the Trilonnet:

abc abc abc abc dd
or
abc cba abc cba dd

The trilonnet is related to the sonnet forms, in that it carries 14 lines of rhyming and metered poetry.

Below is my example; I chose the second option for rhyming and iambic tetrameter.

Melancholy Blue
by Larry Powers

A gentle sweep of snow, she flew
on wisps of wind before first light
and breathed upon the barren limbs.

Before I saw, I heard her whims;
she whispered softly late at night,
and stirred atop the chimney’s flue.

There in the candle’s flitting hue,
I glimpsed the specks of purest white
amid the thrum of winter’s hymns.

And as the waning flame bedims,
she fades away, this frigid spright,
into the melancholy blue.

But in her flight, she leaves a trail
of crystal white upon the vale.

larryp