Create a paradelle. More specifically, the most cogent paradelle you can.
What is a paradelle? A paradelle is an unusual poetic form invented in the 1990s by Billy Collins. It was intended as a joke (the name is a combination of “villanelle” and “parody”). He presented a paradelle in a collection of his poetry, entitled “Paradelle for Susan”, and accompanied by the following 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.
His paradelle was intentionally terrible, with extra unused words tacked onto the final line of each stanza. Despite being a joke, a number of other poets have taken on the unique challenge of this bizarre form — enough to fill a small collection published last year (The Paradelle, ed. by Theresa M. Welford).
To provide an example, the following could qualify as one of the first three stanzas of a paradelle:
Are you sleeping,
Are you sleeping,
Brother John?
Brother John?
Are you John,
Sleeping brother?
The fourth and final stanza of such a paradelle would, of course, have to include one occurrence each of “are”, “brother”, “John”, “sleeping”, and “you”. (Along with the words from the other two stanzas, of course.) A web search for “paradelle” will bring up some complete examples of this odd little form.
The Results
Ryan Finholm
Guides (a paradelle [and plagiary of {and for} Brian])
You know the stars are your guides through this space.
You know the stars are your guides through this space.
Stars that seem to you to be beautiful,
Stars that seem to you to be beautiful,
Your guides-to-be seem to know you, this space
Through beautiful stars: the stars that you are.
In this space you must always be moving.
In this space you must always be moving,
And so you continue as best you can.
And so you continue as best you can.
You can always be best, and so you must,
Moving in space as you continue this.
And though you know you can never reach them,
And though you know you can never reach them,
Stars allow you to choose a direction.
Stars allow you to choose a direction;
A direction can allow you to know,
And you choose stars — you never reach them, though.
Though your best can never be beautiful,
You can always continue to seem so.
To be you: a direction, stars through space,
Stars that are moving, and space you must reach.
You allow stars into you. You know this.
You choose this, and you know them as the guides.
Catherine Olsson
Paradelle for the Unwelcome Sunrise
In sleeping, dreaming, he appears to you,
In sleeping, dreaming, he appears to you,
With burning tongues of flame and amber eyes,
With burning tongues of flame and amber eyes,
In dreaming of amber flame and sleeping tongues
To you, with burning eyes, he appears
He glows cruelly, and slumber lashes fast your drowsy lids.
He glows cruelly, and slumber lashes fast your drowsy lids.
For now, you are asleep, and can fall further, though he follows not (not yet).
For now, you are asleep, and can fall further, though he follows not (not yet).
Yet he follows fast, he glows further. For though your lids and lashes
are cruelly drowsy, now you slumber not, and can not fall asleep.
A glowing orb, his tendrils force aside your blinds,
A glowing orb, his tendrils force aside your blinds,
And he awakens you in harsh sunrise,
And he awakens you in harsh sunrise.
A glowing force, harsh tendrils aside,
His orb in your sunrise, he blinds and awakens you.
And to your eyes, he appears drowsy,
dreaming in amber slumber, and (tendrils and tongues of harsh lashes
aside for now) not burning you cruelly.
He follows, lids glowing, though a force sleeping with-in you
blinds his orb further. And he can fall. Yet you are not he!
Sunrise glows, fast asleep. Your flame awakens.
(Note: Catherine submitted this entry after the deadline.)
Man, what a tough challenge. I completely gave up on it after making a few initial forays. I’d still like to try to write a cogent paradelle someday, but it’s nothing to take on lightly.
Six months after this, Catherine Olsson contacted us about participating in the Commuter Challenge. I replied, and added her to the mailing list. Twelve hours later, she sent another email with the above paradelle. I have no idea how long it actually took her to write it. I can’t quite believe that she actually composed it during those twelve bare hours, but one can never tell what someone else is capable of creating (particularly when they don’t realize that what they’re doing is supposed to be hard). I don’t normally post submissions that were made outside of the given month’s time frame, but for this I made an exception.
by breadbox — 20 February 2008 @ 13:20
I subtitled my submission “A paradelle [and plagiary of {and for} Brian]” because lines 1-4 of each of the first three verses are lifted almost directly from a poem Breadbox wrote almost 20 years ago. I say “almost” because I believe I fudged some of the words to fit the lines into my syllable count. As usual, I was too lazy to pay attention to stressed/non-stressed syllables throughout the lines, that’s Brian’s territory.
I really struggled with making a general paradelle, without the inside reference, for most of February 2007. I found it very, very, very difficult to come up with anything that would result in a potentially cogent fourth verse. I went through dozens and dozens of pages of scribbled paper, each one looking like super-complicated football play diagrams, and each attempt foiled by sets of words that just wouldn’t come together. A couple times, when I came up with a couple lines that seemed promising, I even cut out the words with scissors so that I could shuffle them around manually. Among other problems, it is surprisingly difficult to create genuinely understandable sentences or phrases for the permutation lines (lines 5 and 6 of verses 1-3, and the entire fourth verse) without repeating groups of words in the same order from the original lines (lines 1-4 of verses 1-3).
Anyhow, I’m not sure why I finally turned to Brian’s poem. I guess I was looking for six good lines of ten syllables each, and also figured that Brian might get a kick out of it. Brian’s lines worked surprisingly well, and I was pleased and surprised when I got some semi-rhyming phrases out of the permutation lines [“Through beautiful stars: the stars that you are, ” “A direction can allow you to know, and you choose stars; you never reach them, though.”]. And I was happy at how valid the fourth verse sounds, even though it’s just meaningless new-agey nonsense that doesn’t hold up to any interpretive scrutiny.
So yeah. It was not easy, and not particularly rewarding. It was more like figuring out a tough puzzle than creating a poem. I don’t really feel like I wrote a poem, and not just because I borrowed lines from Brian. It’s more that I don’t feel like I said anything that I’d like to say with the poem. And now I hope the previous sentence didn’t sound new-agey.
by RyanF — 21 February 2008 @ 12:47