Sing, Sing: How to Write a Rondelet

Sing out loud and strong. Sing of good and happy things. Sing a rondelet.

I was introduced to this form in How to Write a Form Poem, in the section on the rondeau. It’s a form that began as a type of song popular in medieval France. I wrote one in The Joy of Poetry that riffs on John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields.

The rondelet is a variation of the rondeau. It’s a seven-line poem with a specific pattern of rhyme and repetition, including a refrain. The refrain has four syllables, and the other lines have eight.

Line 1: refrain A
Line 2: rhyme b
Line 3: refrain A
Line 4: rhyme a
Line 5: rhyme b
Line 6: rhyme b
Line 7: refrain A

Here’s a rondelet that has the title as line 1.

A Rondelet

Is just seven verses rhymed on two.
A rondelet
Is an old jewel quaintly set
In poesy—a drop of dew
Caught in a roseleaf. Lo! For you,
A rondelet.

—Charles Henry Luders

In Rainbow Crow’s notes section about Form & Free Verse, I describe form as a fence. In “Natural Selection,” I clearly cut a hole in the rondelet fence.

Natural Selection

Two eggs
One white, one turquoise
Two eggs
Careful how you tread
One, a parrot, speaking with joy
One, a crow, your peace to destroy
Choose wisely now
Two eggs

Let’s compare my rondelet to a proper rondelet.

Although the b-lines rhyme (turquoise, joy, destroy), the a-lines do not. Because this poem is retelling a parable, I used those a-lines to focus on the important details of the story. I also did not follow the rules on syllables. Lines 5 and 6 both have the required eight syllables, and lines 2, 4, and 7 each have four or five.

To be honest, this poem is barely a rondelet. But what it shares with the form is its songlike structure. Think of it as a story written as a song with three parts: a chorus, a verse, and a bridge:

Line 1: chorus
Line 2: verse 1
Line 3: chorus
Line 4: verse 2
Line 5: bridge 1
Line 6: bridge 2
Line 7: chorus

The Pueblo parable, from which this poem arises, warns us to be careful what we choose. Do we prefer the plain, white egg, that yields a parrot, full of song? Or do we pick the turquoise egg and get a feisty crow? Surely a cautionary tale is worth singing out loud and strong.

Your Turn

Today you are a songwriter! If the A’s and B’s of the rondelet seem confusing, try writing your poem using the chorus-verse-bridge method. Find a simple refrain that sticks in your head and begin.

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.

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Megan Willome

Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.

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