John Milton
The BLUESANELLE verse form is a combination of blues stanza and the villanelle. The BLUES STANZA is a triplet derived from the Afro-American tradition of lamentation or complaint in which line two is an incremental repetition of line one and the third line is a climactic parallel, AAa, BBb, etc. The French VILLANELLE 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: A1çbA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 or, sometimes, in reverse order: abA2 A1. Every line is the same metrical length.
The BLUESANELLE cannot turn on only two rhymes, but like the villanelle it is nineteen lines long and ends in a quatrain rather than a triplet. All lines of triplet one are rhymed A and are refrain lines; the superscripts indicate that, though lines 1 & 2 are the same, differing only incrementally, line 3 is totally different except for the rhyme. The succeeding triplets, like blues stanza, change rhymes for lines 1 & 2, which are refrains, but line three in each stanza, like the villanelle, alternates lines 1 & 3 of the first stanza. The poem ends in a quatrain rhyming either FFA2 A1 or FF A1A2. This is the diagram:
A1
A1
A2
B
B
A1
C
C
A2
D
D
A1
E
E
A2
F
F
A2 or A1
A1 or A2
This is the second poem ever written in the form called the “bluesanelle”:
CHEMOTHERAPY BLUESANELLE
A bloody sunrise seeps into the sky,
A flaming sunrise burns across the sky.
I'll drink my tea and whistle my good-bye.
I ought to hustle, hurry on my way.
Go on, then, scramble, hasten on your way—
A bloody sunrise seeps into the sky.
The clinic's waiting, and I have to go.
Your IV's hanging, so you'd better go.
I'll drink my tea and whistle my good-bye.
The nurse is kind, but will she find a vein?
And what if all this chemo is in vain?
A bloody sunrise seeps into the sky.
I take the cocktail, hoping it's a cure.
You watch the bag drip. Pray that it's a cure.
I'll drink my tea and whistle my good-bye.
Slow drip by measured drip, the day dissolves.
The IV bag grows thin. Your day dissolves.
I'll drink my tea and whistle my good-bye
As bloody sunset seeps into the sky.
Miriam N. Kotzin, 18 March 2013
A MILTONIC BLUESANELLE
On a tailgater and challenge by R. S. Gwynn who said, “Is there a Miltonelle in your future? I hope not!”
Of man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of man's first disobedience, its fruit:
God's ways ain't for this homeboy to dispute.
That angels tumbled from the fluffy clouds,
From inky darkness and from fluffy clouds
And led to disobedience and its fruit;
That there was naked Eve just waitin' there
Down in Eden – that she was waitin' there --
Ain't for this guilty homeboy to dispute.
The fruit fell off the tree and hit the snake
On the head, gave that sneaky snake
What led to disobedience and its fruit.
That Eve got information, passed it out
To Adam, and their clan were all thrown out
Ain't for this guilt-filled homeboy to dispute.
That's what they did, and that is why we're here,
That's why we're waitin' here year after year,
Us homeboys and our girls in disrepute
Coniderin' disobedience and its fruit.
By Lewis Turco, originally published in The Nervous Breakdown, March 22, 2014. Other bluesanelles may be found here: http://baltimorereview.org/index.php/summer_2013/contributor/lewis-turco
http://www.towerjournal.com/fall_2013/lewis_turco.htm
lifeandlegends.com/lewis-turco/
Suggested writing exercise:
Write a bluesanelle or two.
