You Can Write a Triolet

You Can Write a Triolet

You Can Write a Triolet
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	high interest, readability grade 4
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	4.1

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		anew, repeated, underline, scheme, form, poetry, clearly, fate, meaning, assignment, seventh, thee, view, however, lines, itself
	content words:		Great My Grief, Thomas Hardy

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You Can Write a Triolet
By Brenda B. Covert

¹     There is a form of poetry that came from France. It is the triolet. (It can be pronounced TREE-uh-lay or TREE-uh-let.) Do you see the word "trio," meaning three, in triolet? Something about this poem has to do with the number three. A triolet has eight lines; however, one line repeats itself three times throughout the poem. The first, fourth, and seventh lines of a triolet are the same. The second line of the poem is used again as the last line. A poet can write five rhyming lines and create the eight-lined triolet.

²     The rhyme scheme of the triolet is ABaAabAB. The capital letters stand for the lines that are repeated. The use of "a" and "b" tells us that the triolet follows only two rhymes. Take a look at the poem's pattern below.

1st line A
2nd line B
3rd line a
4th line A
5th line a
6th line b
7th line A
8th line B

³     That takes care of the rhyme scheme. Now we must address meter. A triolet is usually written in iambic tetrameter. That's eight syllables of four iambic (unstressed/stressed) feet. The beat goes like this: ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM. Look at the example below to see how the rhyme and rhythm of a triolet flow.

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