Edwin Arlington Robinson
In late January of 2005, the poet-scholar Annie Finch e-mailed me to relay a query she had received from Erin A. Thomas asking her if she knew whether I were the inventor of the terzanelle, and if the only existing example was “Terzanelle in Thunderweather” in The New Book of Forms1 and The Book of Forms, Third Edition.2 I replied that I hadn’t thought of the terzanelle as an invention, but it’s true that in 1964 or 1965 I had experimented with the form of the villanelle by applying terza rima to it, thus coming up with a hybrid form that acted rather like a pantoum and that I called the “terzanelle.” Therefore, in that sense, yes, I was its inventor. But the terzanelle begins, of course, with the villanelle.
The oldest, and in fact the only example of the form that existed prior to the nineteenth century was the French Renaissance poem titled "Villanelle" by Jean Passerat (1534–1602). All other so-called “villanelles” or farmers’ songs of the period were simple baladas, dance songs with insistent refrains, as outlined in The New Book of Forms. Théodore de Banville in the nineteenth century popularized the form in France, and Edmund Gosse did the same after he imported it into England. Other English poets who used the villanelle were Austin Dobson, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce who included a poem written in that form in his autobiographical fiction A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
In September 1894 the American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson published in the Boston Globe a villanelle that soon became famous in the United States, “The House on the Hill,” which I read in my ‘teens and loved. Others from one or another edition of Louis Untermeyer’s Modern American Poetry and Modern British Poetry that I also read during the early ‘fifties and admired were the Welshman Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” and Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking.” All three, in my opinion, were truly memorable works of art. A bit later, in 1959-60, my University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop classmates and I were introduced by Donald Justice to Weldon Kees’ “Five Villanelles” — amazing poems many of us thought. Other villanelles by poets of the period were “Villanelle” by W. H. Auden, “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop, “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath, and “Villanelle of the Circus Villains” by Richard Frost. I included both “The House on the Hill” and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” in the third edition of The Book of Forms where this was my description of the form:
The French villanelle, like the terzanelle, is a poem of five triplet stanzas and a concluding quatrain, but it turns on only two rhymes. Lines one and three of triplet one are refrains, the first of which reappears as lines six, twelve, and eighteen; the second reappears as lines nine, fifteen, and nineteen: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 or, sometimes, in reverse order: abA2A1. Every line is the same metrical length.”
The capital letters indicate refrain lines, both of which rhyme A; therefore, the superscripts indicate that the lines differ from one another.
In his “Foreword” to my First Poems Justice wrote, “No reader can avoid noticing the variety of forms here. There are sapphics, several of the French forms, sonnets…no villanelles, no sestinas, fashionable forms at the moment.” I am unable to explain why I wrote no villanelles in those days and, in fact, I didn’t write one until long after I had “invented” the terzanelle. This was my first effort:
VILLANELLE AT THE END OF TIME4
As we were winding up, the clock unwound.
The spring was set — until we felt the fall,
The flailing hands of fall, the scyther's wound.
We put down roots upon the shiftless sand;
We felt the glass turn, heard the nightwatch call
As we were winding up. The clock unwound
And sprang us into chimes of the yearsend.
We watched the pendulum against the wall,
The flailing hands of fall. The scyther's wound
Appeared upon our flesh, and on the ground
There lay in swathes the crop that could not fail.
As we were winding up, the clock unwound
And filled the autumn air with autumn's sound:
We marked the hours, felt the moments coil,
The flailing hands of fall, the scyther's wound.
And in the stillness now our pulses pound
Minutely, till we hear them not at all.
As we were winding up, the clock unwound
The flailing hands of all the scythers wound.
I didn’t publish another villanelle until ten years later. My epigraph was from a 17th-century book of aphorisms because at the time I was working on a series of poems that was projected to be titled A Book of Proverbs, but it never appeared as a separate volume. Instead, it was included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court.5
VILLANELLE OF A WINTER'S DAY6
"The life of man is a winter's day and a winter's way." —
The life of man is a winter's day.
As the wind blows, so wends each hour.
The life of man is a winter's way.
In the bright morning an overlay
Of snow clothes earth in a gown of hoar.
The life of man is a winter's day.
The louring billows of noon are grey
Upon the horizon, they begin to soar.
The life of man is a winter's way.
By afternoon the world's away
In a whirl of rime gone bleak and dour.
The life of man is a winter's day.
At eventide the light gives way
For good and all to a darker power —
The life of man is a winter's way.
No matter whether we curse or pray,
Bonechill and night come falling sure.
The life of man is a winter's day.
The life of man is a winter's way.
This villanelle is a slight deviation from the standard because the two refrain lines are identical except for the rhyme words, so the second can be described as an incremental repetition of the first.
The last villanelle I published was written in in Dresden, Maine, on my in-laws’ family farm not long before my mother-in-law died in 1996. It was her favorite poem and something of an experiment because it is written not in verse, but in prose — I had been experimenting with various kinds of poems written in lyric prose ever since I had run across Ezra Pound’s experiments with it in some of his versions of Chinese poems:
VILLANELLE OF THE FIRST DAY7
It is the first day of autumn come in August,
The sun lying upon the lush green of the morning
Chill and brilliant, shadows to the west longest
Over the gullies, under the vacant nest
Hung in the pine, the heavy dews shining —
It is the first day of autumn come in August,
No hint of the south about it, no feel of the tempest
Gone to sea beyond the headlands standing
Chill and brilliant, shadows to the west longest
Along the cascades of stone ranging the coast
Where gulls ride the currents plunging and wheeling.
It is the first day of autumn come in August,
The tall occasional cloud driving east
Across the sky of opal hovering
Chill and brilliant. Shadows to the west, longest
Under the woodlot, run into the pasture, are cast
Down the river moving beneath the spring
Chill and brilliant. The shadows to the west are longest —
It is the first day of autumn come in August.
I had included a description of the terzanelle in the first edition of The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics8 but there were no examples of poems in that volume, and I didn’t include my poem’s title in the “Bibliography of Examples” (on page 133). This is the description of the terzanelle as it appeared in the second edition of The Book of Forms which was titled The New Book of Forms in 1986:9
The American terzanelle is a villanelle written in terza rima. Like the latter, it is nineteen lines in length: five interlocking triplets plus a concluding quatrain in which the first and third lines of triplet one reappear as refrains. The center line of each triplet is a repeton reappearing as the last line of the succeeding triplet with the exception of the center line of the penultimate stanza [the last triplet] which reappears in the quatrain. This is the rhyme and refrain scheme for the triplets: A1BA2 bCB cDC dED eFE. The poem may end in one of two ways: fA1FA2 or fFA1A2. Every line is the same metrical length.
The original description was pretty much the same except for that last sentence, because the first terzanelle had one line, the third, that was not the same length as the rest of the lines, which were written in iambic tetrameter meters. The third line was a trimeter line.
At this point perhaps it would be a good idea to define the term “terza rima.” This was the entry for The Book of Forms, first edition:
Italian. Accentual-syllabic. Any number of interlocking enclosed triplet stanzas. The first and third lines of a stanza rhyme; the second line rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza. In other words, the ending of the second line of any stanza becomes the rhyme for the following stanza: aba bcb cdc, etc. The poem usually ends in a couplet rhymed from the second line of the last triplet: yzy zz. The meter is usually iambic pentameter.
Prof. Finch put me in touch with Erin Thomas who struck up a correspondence with me regarding the background of the terzanelle. During the course of our correspondence I told Thomas that the first example of the form in print, titled "Terzanelle," appeared in 1965:
TERZANELLE10
The wind's a huckster whose breath blows
Tongues and voices, voices and tongues
Out of a sack of echoes.
He barters nothing. From his lung
The spiel of time unwinds and knots
Tongues and voices, voices and tongues.
Skeins of rumor in cosmic lots
Ravel the air like the yarns they are.
The spiel of time unwinds and knots
A song of silence from star to star.
The spider's rope and the night's thread
Ravel the air. Like the yarns they are,
Words turn to tangles as they are said.
Watch the mountebank at his trading
The spider's rope and the night's thread,
Darkness his stock and his bill of lading.
Watch the mountebank at his trading:
The wind's a huckster whose breath blows
Out of a sack of echoes.
This poem was first collected in Courses in Lambents, a book that appeared in 1977 attributed to my avatar “Wesli Court,” an anagram pen-name I had been using for the traditionally formal poems I had been publishing in little magazines and literary periodicals. From that date on Wesli would supply me with examples of poems in the various forms I would need in the later editions of The Book of Forms, but the first “Terzanelle” itself would never appear as an example of the form.
When Prof. Finch wrote me in 2005 I knew that a number of young poets had been writing terzanelles some of which were being posted on the internet. It was there that I ran across someone who conjectured that I had invented the form merely because I wanted to see how many people would use it. That is very far from the fact. It was purely an experiment on my part to see how well terza rima and the villanelle form would blend. Apparently people felt they melded well.
I suggested to Annie Finch that she Google the term, though I’d never done so myself. I took my own advice and discovered that there were 26,000 hits on the internet! I was astounded. Although the activity on the web has since cooled way down (9,260 hits on Monday, September 27, 2010), it must have been the most popular verse form in the world right at that moment. I also Googled “blues sonnet,” the other form I had “invented,” the first examples of which appeared as “The Boneyard Blues” in my book of criticism Visions and Revisions of American Poetry,12 but there were only 72 hits for that form on the web. I was bemused. One would have thought that the American blues forms would have been more popular than an old “French” form. How little one knows!
The next terzanelle I wrote was "Thunderweather"; the title was later changed to “Terzanelle in Thunderweather," and it has become a standard, especially on-line where it has often been pirated. I used it as an example of the form in The New Book of Forms in 1986, Miller Williams used it in his Patterns of Poetry in the same year,14 and others have used it since:
TERZANELLE IN THUNDERWEATHER
This is the moment when the shadows gather
Under the elms, the cornices and eaves.
This is the silent heart of thunderweather.
The birds are quiet now among the leaves
Where wind stutters, then moves steadily
Under the elms, the cornices and eaves —
These are our voices speaking guardedly
About the sky, about the sheets of lightning
Where wind stutters, then moves steadily
Into our lungs, across our lips, tightening
Our throats. Our eyes speak in the dark
About the sky, about the sheets of lightning
Illuminating moments. In the stark
Shades that we inhabit there are no words
For our throats. Our eyes speak in the dark
Of things we cannot say, cannot ignore.
This is the moment when the shadows gather,
Shades that we inhabit. There are no words —
This is the silent heart of thunderweather.
This poem began with a word. I had always wondered why one of the favorite expletives of the German language, “Donnerwetter,” had never gained a foothold in its sister language, English. I decided to give it a chance by using its English equivalent in a terzanelle. I have not so far been successful in popularizing it in our language, but apparently the Germans love it! They have translated it into German and run it through the on-line critical mill in Europe.
“Terzanelle of This Room of Hours” was originally titled simply “The Room” when it appeared in 1978:
TERZANELLE OF THIS ROOM OF HOURS15
There is a room, and in that room hourdust
Lies smothering the chairs, the rugs and couches
Where no one sits, where the radiators rust,
Thinking of steam. The chill of evening slouches
In the corner shadows where wallpaper peels in waves,
Lies smothering the chairs, the rugs and couches.
Nothing is certain here. The twilight saves
The day in ripples that fall through windowpanes
On corner shadows where wallpaper peels in waves,
Sounding the silent combers. Everything stains
Everything, is nothing but what it is.
The day, in ripples that fall through windowpanes,
Washes the floor and fades. Now, in this
Heartbeat preceding night, the room is still
Everything, is nothing but what it is:
The raveling of mildew upon a sill;
Heartbeat preceding night. The room is still
Where no one sits, where the radiators rust.
There is a room, and in that room, our dust.
"Terzanelle of the Spider's Web" appeared in January 1990:
TERZANELLE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB16
The spider spins her web across the pane.
Beneath her in the dusk the room is still.
Upon the glass the hours have left their stain,
And darkness seeps down on the windowsill.
At last she finishes her silent weaving;
Behind her in the dusk the room is still
Accumulating echoes of the evening —
They fill the corners, spread across the floor.
She finishes at last her silent weaving
And then awaits the trembling at her door.
The shadows wait as well — they swell and grow;
They fill the corners, spread across the floor.
Time drifts. The room is netted in its flow.
The spider rides upon the darkening tide,
And the shadows wait as well — they swell and grow.
The room and all things in it will abide.
Upon the glass the hours have left their stain.
The spider rides upon the darkening tide,
For she has spun her web across the pane.
There was a hiatus in my composition of poems in this form until I got the idea of writing a series of autobiographical terzanelles, the first being “The Premonition, ” which first appeared in a textbook in 2006.17 I disguised it by publishing it as a block of print, something I had done on occasion with “Thunderweather.” The poem described an incident that had taken place while I was serving as a member of the crew of an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Hornet (CVA 12), in 1955:
THE PREMONITION
The first two planes had crashed. I’d known they would
as I watched AirOps from the Gunner’s Bridge,
and I’d seen everything from where I stood.
The wings folded along the fuselage
on this new day relieved me. I was glad,
as I watched AirOps from the Gunner’s Bridge,
that this third time there would be nothing bad
about to happen. My instincts had been wrong
on this new day. I was deeply glad
this pilot would be safe. I looked along
the deck as the plane was parked, then looked away
before it happened — my gut had not been wrong!
The jet had not cut out! I saw it sway,
then disappear over the Hornet’s side
near where it had been parked. I looked away —
At least the first two pilots hadn’t died!
Those first two planes had crashed. I’d known they would,
but this one fell along the Hornet’s side,
and I’d seen everything from where I stood.
The second poem in the series was “Passing the time”; it appeared on-line in an e-zine in 2008:
PASSING THE TIME18
Where am I going? How do I know where?
Why do I write as I saunter along,
passing the time on the road to nowhere?
I’m humming a tune, mumbling a song
to kill as much time as I sensibly can —
that’s why I write as I wander along
making the syllables skip and scan,
making the language dance and go deep
to kill as much time as I sensibly can —
to liven the senses before I sleep,
slipping into that ultimate slumber.
Making the language dance and go deep
by counting these syllables without number
and making them count is my chosen role.
Slipping into the final slumber
is, of course, my ultimate goal.
Where am I going? How can I know where?
Making time count is my chosen role
while passing time on this road to nowhere.
My last terzanelle to date, “The Black Death,” had a different inception from the three preceding, but one similar to that which gave rise to “Thunderweather.” It has always irked me that etymologists have long overlooked the obvious derivation of the word “boo-boo,” a sore or minor wound. The American Heritage Dictionary, for example, has this: “Perhaps alteration of boohoo, to weep noisily.” So I decided to write a poem that gives a more likely source, the bubo:
THE BLACK DEATH19
London, 1665
“I have a bubo, mum,” my daughter said
and raised her sleeve to show me. In the street
the bellman cried aloud, “Bring out your dead!”
The heart of me froze like a drop of sleet,
dropped into my bowel when my darling child
raised up her sleeve to show me. In the street
the crier’s bell rang out both dark and wild.
The end of time opened like a flower,
fell into my bowel as my darling child
showed me her fatal wound. Our final hour
blossomed before my eyes in Satan’s garden,
for the end of time had opened like a flower.
I felt the heart in me begin to harden
against a Deity who could ordain
such an evil blossoming of Satan’s garden.
What were the sins that could have earned such bane?
What sort of Deity could so ordain?
“I have a bubo, mum,” my daughter said.
The bellman cried aloud, “Bring out your dead!”
The poem first appeared on-line in an essay by Brian Bridges titled “The Villanelle and Variants: An Overview.” It turned out to be a good deal darker than I had at first surmised, but a poet must walk where the word-path opens. I substituted it for "Terzanelle in Thunderweather" in The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition.
_______
1Lewis Turco, The New Book of Forms, A Handbook of Poetics (second edition of The Book of Forms), Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986.
2——, The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Third Edition, Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000.
3——, First Poems, Francestown: Golden Quill Press, 1960.
4First published in Buckle, IV:1, Fall-Winter 1980-81, p. 19, and included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: Star Cloud Press, 2004.
5Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
6Originally published in The Kentucky Poetry Review, V. 27, Fall 1991, p. 65. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
7E.L.F., Eclectic Literary Forum, V:3, fall 1995, p. 26. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
8The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, [first edition], New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968.
9Op. cit.
10The Michigan Quarterly Review, volume iv, number 3, in July of 1965. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
11"Wesli Court," (anagram pseudonym of Lewis Turco), Courses in Lambents: Poems, Oswego, NY: Mathom Publishing Company, 1977.
12Lewis Putnam Turco, Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986, pp. 130-132.
13First published in Modern Poetry Studies, iii:5, 1973. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
14Miller Williams, Patterns of Poetry, Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1986.
15Poetry Miscellany, 8, 1978, p. 110. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
16The Southern Review, xxvi:1, January 1990, pp. 223-5. Included in The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, op. cit.
17R. S. Gwynn, editor, Poetry: A Pocket Anthology, Fifth Edition, New York: Penguin Academics, 2006, p. 355. This poem is included in Wesli Court, The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems, Scottsdale, AZ: Star Cloud Press, 2009
18Per Contra, Summer 2008. This poem is included in Wesli Court, The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems, op. cit.
19 Bryan Bridges, “The Villanelle and Variants: An Overview,” Trellis Summer, 2007. The poem is included in Wesli Court, The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems, op. cit.
