Hello and welcome everyone! This is Gayle from Bodhirose’s Blog for Meeting the Bar and I’m introducing a form today known as the Rondel which is sometimes spelled Rondelle but is not to be confused with the Roundel, or the Rondelet which was previously covered in Form For All by Tony Maude some time back. Whew! Please don’t tell me that you’re already confused…smiles.
The Rondel is a French short form first composed in the 14th century that evolved from the songs of French troubadours (medieval poets or singers) and is comprised of three verses which include two quatrains and one quintet. The word “rondel” comes from the French meaning “little round” and is so called because of the use of repeated refrain lines that serve to create a circular pattern in the poem so that it wraps back around itself.
In my research of this form there were no parameters concerning meter or syllables except in one instance where it said 8 syllables per line are sometimes used. So I leave it up to you, dear poets, to choose whether you would like to limit your syllables or not. Either way is acceptable.
Bing Images Public Domain: Troubadour
So, we’re working with a 13 line poem. Each quatrain is 4 lines each and then the quintet is 5 lines.
The first two lines of the first quatrain are the refrain and are repeated as the last two lines of the second stanza and in the quintet (third stanza) the first line of your poem will be repeated on your 13th line. The poem uses only two rhymes, so the structure of the poem looks like this:
1st line A
2nd line B
3rd line b (rhymes with B)
4th line a (rhymes with A)
5th line a (rhymes with A)
6th line b (rhymes with B)
7th line A (entire 1st line repeated)
8th line B (entire 2nd line repeated)
9th line a (rhymes with A)
10th line b (rhymes with B)
11th line b (rhymes with B)
12th line a (rhymes with A)
3th line A (entire 1st line repeated)
I have bolded the lines that are the refrains taken from the first two lines of the poem to illustrate where they will be placed.
The following is a Rondel by Henry Austin Dobson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Austin_Dobson
Love comes back to his vacant dwelling,
The old, old Love that we knew of yore!
We see him stand by the open door,
With his great eyes sad, and his bosom swelling.
He makes as though in our arms repelling.
He fain would lie as he lay before;
Love comes back to his vacant dwelling,
The old, old Love that we knew of yore!
Ah! who shall help us from over-spelling
That sweet, forgotten, forbidden lore?
E’en as we doubt, in our hearts once more,
With a rush of tears to our eyelids welling,
Love comes back to his vacant dwelling.
And here’s another:
A Rondel for Margarita; Copyright 2004 Gail Kavanagh
On the carousel, on a summer’s day,
As the rest of the fairground goes gliding by,
We coast together, now low, now high,
But how quickly the moment slips away.
She laughs at the music, elfin and fey,
She laughs for joy at the sapphire sky,
On the carousel, on a summer’s day,
As the rest of the fairground goes gliding by.
How sweet her delight in simple play,
Someday, without me, she’ll take to the sky,
Brave little fledgling, ready to fly.
We must hold these moments while we may
On the carousel, on a summer’s day.
Shadow Poetry: http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/rondel.html
I hope you enjoy trying the new form today. Gayle ~
To those of you who are new and as a reminder to those who aren’t, here is how we go about sharing our writings:
- Write your poem and post it to your blog or website. A link back to dVerse is always appreciated.
- Copy the url of your poem and click on the Mister Linky below and paste it into the space provided along with your name.
- After linking up, leave a comment below. We would love to get to know everyone better and we welcome discussions and questions.
- Visit and LEAVE COMMENTS for the other poets who have linked a poem and especially to those who have visited you.
- Enjoy and share our wonderful community with others.
Mary said:
Good afternoon, Friends! Gayle will be a little bit late today, but I hope you all will jump in and enjoy this prompt! At first I thought it would be very difficult, but once I sat down to give it a try I found out the hardest thing was finding a topic & a first line. Smiles.
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I found the same thing, Mary. And I love Rhymetime–a great online resource.
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
I use b-rhymes, love those slanted rhymes… 🙂
Grace said:
Yes, I use the slant b rhymes too ~
Victoria C. Slotto said:
Welcome to the Pub and the wonderful challenge Gayle is offering us. She is not able to be here right away, but will catch up as soon as she can. In the meantime, enjoy working with the Rondel–form poetry is such a good way to stretch our poetic skills.
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
I’m sure you had no problem Victoria.
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I find it hard to avoid the sing-song effect. That’s why I like slant rhymes, too.
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
I agree with Mary… when you started writing the poem wrote itself… and so much easier than a Villanelle….
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I’m the rare bird that thinks Sestina is easier than Villanelle.
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Sestina still makes me shiver… but I think I’m soon ready for one.
Victoria C. Slotto said:
Go for it. I’m afraid if I gave it as a prompt, no one would do it. BUT, it could work for one of the poetics prompts, or OLN. Consider yourself challenged!
Sanaa Rizvi said:
Hey everyone,
Hope you’re having a wonderful week so far 🙂 Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and I couldn’t help writing a romantic Rondel 😉 hope you guys like it.
Thank you Gayle for the amazing prompt!
Lots of love,
Sanaa
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I suspected that’s where you would go.
Sanaa Rizvi said:
Hehehe 😀
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Oh Saana… I think you would have done romantic, with or without Valentine 🙂
Sanaa Rizvi said:
I plead guilty 😀
Björn Rudberg (brudberg) said:
Such lovely poems… Now I need to find my way to bed…
Mary said:
See you tomorrow, Bjorn!
Bodhirose said:
Hello everyone! I’m on the road and should be home in an hour or so. Will catch up with you all soon. Thanks to my trusty team members for covering for me today.
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I have to leave for a while, so the timing is great. I would like to try another if I can find time. Very fun form.
Mary said:
See you soon, Gayle! Wonderful prompt.
Bodhirose said:
So glad you liked it, Mary, thanks!
tsdwords said:
This was a lovely form to play with. Thank you
Bodhirose said:
I’m so glad you enjoyed it…you’re welcome, tswords!
tsdwords said:
It was a perfect starting point
Lillian said:
Yeeeow! It’s another sudoku assignment😊! I’ll get it – but it’ll take me a while. And I think I should not be drinking wine when I do this! Love this pub–I do learn a lot but tonight it shall be a glass of sparkling water please! Thanks for the challenge, Gayle! 👏👏
Bodhirose said:
Hi Lillian, it does take a bit of concentration but I have no doubt that you can manage a lovely poem. 🙂
Linda Kruschke said:
What a great form! Thanks for sharing it and for providing such a clear lesson on how to write one. I always love learning a new form and I especially like the ones with repeating lines like this one. Peace, Linda
Mary said:
I like this kind of a challenge too, Linda! It had been a long time since I tried a rondel. Glad you joined in.
Bodhirose said:
Hi Linda, thanks for joining in and I’m glad for your feedback on my instruction…it is helpful to know if you’re doing a good job or need improvement anywhere.
Gayle ~
Grace said:
Hi everyone ~ I am late but here I am ~ Thanks for the wonderful introduction to the form Gayle ~ I will hit the trail in a bit ~
Happy Thursday ~
Bodhirose said:
After a quick stop for dinner, I’m here and ready to head out and make my visits. You’re welcome, Grace. See you out there!
Pleasant Street said:
Hi everyone. I’m pretty lost here with the meter, so I’m going to peruse everyone elses instead. Lovely form. Very nice
Bodhirose said:
Sometimes it is helpful to check out how others are doing theirs, PS. There is really no specific meter, although some are written with eight syllables but you are free to write lines of any length. Just use two rhymes and the repeating refrain. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Pleasant Street said:
I enjoy reading traditional meters, these are very lovely.
To write it takes many days for me. But I enjoy the reading, Thank you
Victoria C. Slotto said:
I think you would be surprised…once you get the first 2 lines it seems to flow. I like to outline the rhyme scheme down the paper I draft on and then write each line opposite the letter eg: A
B
b
a etc.
Pleasant Street said:
Yes yours was marvelous ^_^
It’s okay, I can be a reader. I know my limits
Truedessa said:
Good Evening, I thought I give this a try as my muse wanted a say…I look forward to reading.
Bodhirose said:
Hi Truedessa, so glad your muse wants a say…I’m all ears!
whimsygizmo said:
Long day. Late to the party. Just getting started. 😉
Cheers.
Bodhirose said:
Cheers, De! No worries…I’m still around. 🙂
whimsygizmo said:
That was HARD. I am fond of slant rhymes (mainly because regular rhymes want to get all iambic on me, and stuck in my craw so that everything for a few days feels like a rhyme-y poem, and not necessarily in a good way.) But I digress…I have used some slant rhyme here, as well as playing around with where a thought ends. I’m a Rebel Form Girl, at best. 😉
whimsygizmo said:
For some reason, I am having trouble accessing (some, but not all) WordPress blogs tonight, even though my own blog is WordPress. I can’t even get there to read the poems. Bryan Ens, Victoria and Gayle, I tried to get over your way tonight, and can’t. I will try again tomorrow.
whimsygizmo said:
Nevamind. 😉 For some reason, it just started working again. Have been around to all. LOVE the variations in theme, tone, syllable count, and flow. So fun when a form can be made your own.
Victoria C. Slotto said:
Oh our tempermental technologies.
Snakypoet (Rosemary Nissen-Wade) said:
Oh, that was fun! And it practically wrote itself. It fell naturally into eight syllables per line, perhaps because I had just read the Gail Kavanagh piece. And yes, I have some near rhymes too. 🙂
Snakypoet (Rosemary Nissen-Wade) said:
Aarrgh! I realise I mucked up the rhyme scheme in last verse. But I don’t want to change the poem now, as I can’t find a successful way to do so. So I have written another one.
lillian said:
oh my gosh!!!! I did it! Wow! Another poetic sudoku….I am learning so much from all of you wonderful bartenders 🙂 Thank you Gayle for this amazing prompt. And thank you whomever mentioned Rhyme Time — sure makes me feel a lot better since I’ve always been a free-verse kind of gal and always had a hard time getting past the “roses are red, violets are blue” kind of sounding rhyme. Hope you’ll all take a look — I think it is done correctly. I hope so! Photos are from Bermuda….this place is an amazing poetic muse.
We are off on a day’s adventure — so won’t be able to read all the other wonderful Rondels till tonight — but I’ll get there 🙂
lillian
Mary said:
I love your enthusiasm, Lillian!
Bodhirose said:
Of course you did it, Lillian. You’re a good sport and I appreciate you giving it a try. I’ll check it out later today when I’m done watching Mira today…granddaughter. 🙂
writersdream9 said:
I enjoyed the rondel but I do think the rhythm was off. Thank you, Bodhirose for a challenging but fun prompt! Happy Valentines Day everyone!
Mary said:
Ha, you are right….Valentines Day is Sunday!! Happy Valentines Day to all.
writersdream9 said:
🙂
Bodhirose said:
Happy Valentine’s Day, Carol…thank you! And you’re welcome, I’m so glad you gave it a try. 🙂
writersdream9 said:
Thank you!
http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com said:
I am amazed! Everyone seems to have enjoyed that form and written excellent poems. I couldn’t get past the first post, despite several false starts. I take my hat off to you.
Bodhirose said:
We really did get some quite beautiful poems out of that form, I agree, Viv. I miss yours though…