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Poetic Form: Paradelle
Well, well. Who’s tried writing a paradelle? It’s a poetic form that Billy Collins originally introduced as “one of the more demanding French forms,” though eventually Collins fessed up that he created it as a joke.
Collins was not kidding about the demanding rules of the paradelle. Here they are:
[Pasted from Original Source, Cited at end]
Just when I thought I’d run into one of the crazier poetic forms in the paradelle (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/personal-updates/poetic-form-palindrome-poetry-or-mirror-poem),
I tried my hand at the palindrome poem, which I think is much more difficult.
The rules are simple enough:
At first, the simplicity of the rules made me feel like this would be easy enough to do, but I ran into problems almost immediately. For instance, you can’t start the poem with the word “the” unless you plan to end the poem on the word “the.” And just because something makes sense in the first half doesn’t guarantee it’ll pass the same test on the way back.
Here’s my attempt (after messing around for some time):
“Witches burn”
Gypsies tell girls,
“Witches burn candles,”
and laugh. Cats
jump fences.
Shadows cast spells in
darkness
in spells cast shadows.
“Fences jump, cats laugh,
and candles burn witches,”
girls tell gypsies.
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