Honing the Craft

Week 31 Rondeau

Another Year

Another chance to make it right,
with renewed hope, morning and night.
Begin and end my day on my knees
fill hours in tune with other's pleas
care for myself, walk in the light.

Repeat what worked, discard the blight,
embrace the good and try what might,
enjoy my home among the trees,
another chance.

New Year's on us, almost in sight,
winter sun sparkles on the white
crystals of last night's frost to tease
away gloom and transition with ease
from old to new, I sit and write.
Another chance.
                   Judi Van Gorder

Notes: ▶︎

Verse Form: Rondeau  

The Rondeau was narrowed to the poetic verse form we know today by the 17th century. The elements of the Rondeau are:
         1. a 15 line poem made up of a quintain, followed by a quatrain and ending in a sixain.
         2. syllabic, L9 & L15 are 4 syllables each and all other lines are 8 syllables each. In English it is usually metered, most often iambic tetrameter except the refrain which is iambic dimeter.
         3. composed with rentrement, a refrain repeated from the opening phrase of the poem.
         4. rhymed, using only 2 rhymes except for the refrain being unrhymed, rhyme scheme aabba, aabR, aabbaR (R being the refrain)
         5. a vehicle for serious verse, unlike the Triolet or Rondel which originate from the same source but tend to be lighter verse.

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