Tips for Writing Triolet Poetry

The form stems from medieval French poetry; the earliest known examples are from the late 13th century.

The Triolet is an eight-line form, usually in iambic ("dah-DUM") tetrameter or pentameter (see "Poetic Meter"), that uses two refrains. A refrain is a line that is repeated one or more times in a poem. Line 1 repeats as Lines 4 and 7, and Line 2 as the last line. Therefore, the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines.

There is some flexibility in the refrains, and it is traditional to use two halves of at least one of the refrains in different contexts, which I try to do. The format is as follows (line-rhyme or line-refrain):

L1- a

L2- b

L3- a

L4- refrain (L1)

L5- a

L6- b

L7- refrain (L1)

L8- refrain (L2)

Remember that in a rhyming pattern, lines ending in a sound designated by "a" only rhyme with other "a" lines, "b" lines only with other "b" lines, and so on.

Example:

Passage Rites

I grew up fast, I missed my dad's advice,
and I was forced to skip the passage rites.
The oldest of the kids, I paid the price
and grew up fast. I longed for dad's advice,
adulthood seemed so daunting, so concise-
no boyhood dreams, no bugs beneath the lights.
I grew up fast while missing Dad's advice
when I was forced to skip the passage rites.