The Triolet

A form, A challenge

I really like a good triolet. If you’re not familiar with it, look it up.

One of the most fun and most famous examples is “To a Lady Seen From the Train” by Frances Cornford:

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
    Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
    And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
    Missing so much and so much?

And so much indeed. Chesterton actually wrote a response to this which includes these characteristically piquant lines:

Why do you rush through the fields in trains,
Guessing so much and so much.
Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-head poet that nobody reads….

His is not a triolet properly speaking, but I take his point. Still, as much as I love his work, I cannot help but enjoy Cornford’s use of blunt humor to criticize an image of disconnection from the natural world. She used to appear on Poetry Foundation, I think, but as this poem is her best known, I suppose she was cancelled—too offensive, not “body-positive.”

That’s beside the point, however. The point is, rather, the power of repetition. French forms love refrains (triolets, ballades, villanelles), and repetend can aid both mirth and melancholy. Consider Thomas Hardy’s famous example:

  How great my grief, my joys how few, 
Since first it was my fate to know thee! 
—Have the slow years not brought to view 
How great my grief, my joys how few, 
Nor memory shaped old times anew, 
    Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee 
How great my grief, my joys how few, 
    Since first it was my fate to know thee?

Hardy and I might have been friends, but we would have disagreed on many subjects. There is no doubt, however, that I would have praised this poem—and perhaps he would have told me to go to hell. I don’t know. I hope to see him in heaven where he, with joy, will have to admit he was wrong—as I (if I make it) will also have to do.

Here’s one more from that brilliant poet/humorist Wendy Cope:

Valentine

My heart has made its mind up
And I’m afraid it’s you.
Whatever you’ve got lined up,
My heart has made its mind up
And if you can’t be signed up
This year, next year will do.
My heart has made its mind up
And I’m afraid it’s you.

Finally, as I wrap up another semester and begin to have some free time, I have a new (perhaps deficient or delusional) proposal for Substack poets to consider:

Dear poets out there—write a triolet or two and send them to me before or on New Year’s Day. I’ll pick my favorites (3) and Venmo the “winners” each $50. The top three (and honorable mentions) I’ll share from on my “stack,” but submissions will, of course, belong to the poets. By submitting, however, participants agree to have their submissions published on Verdurous Glooms, my personal and (intentionally) unprofitable account. $50 ain’t much, but it’s not nothing, and it comes out of my own pocket. This is supposed to be more fun than serious anyway—a gesture of whimsy.

I’d especially like to see what Robert Charboneau, Olivia Marstall, Caelyn Snyder, James Hart, Zane Paxton, J.Z Schafer, Brit McReynolds, Nathan Woods, Sam Downey-Higgins, and Nik Hoffmann might come up with. Of course, no pressure, and if I get no submissions, so be it. I'm so grateful for you all anyway.

In the Meadow, Claude Monet (1876)