zodiac6 Dec 2005

Paradelle?

'Billy Collins claimed that the paradelle was invented in eleventh century France, but he actually invented it himself to parody strict forms, particularly the villanelle. His sample paradelle, "Paradelle for Susan" (c1997), was intentionally terrible, completing the final stanza with the line "Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to".

When Collins first published the paradelle, it was with the footnote "The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words."'