Triolet page: Light Verse Resource Center

Triolet

Often grouped with the rondeau family, the triolet is an eight-line form using only two rhyme sounds. The first line is repeated verbatim twice, the second line once. The rhyme scheme, in which capital letters represent the repeated lines, is: ABaAabAB.

The earliest known triolets were written by Adenéz-le-Roi in the late 1200s.

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Triolet
by Wendy Cope

I used to think all poets were Byronic--
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
And then I met a few. Yes it's ironic--
I used to think all poets were Byronic.
They're mostly wicked as a ginless tonic
And wild as pension plans. Not long ago
I used to think all poets were Byronic--
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

English Department Poet
by Joseph S. Salemi

You cannot hope for eminence
     Beyond this little campus square;
To poetry make no pretence--
You cannot. Hope for eminence
Before a coed audience
     Whom workshop drivel can ensnare.
You cannot hope for eminence
     Beyond this, little campus square.

"Triolet" © 1986 Wendy Cope, from Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis; by permission of Faber and Faber UK;
"English Department Poet" © 1999 Joseph S. Salemi, from Nonsense Couplets and Other Jeux d'Esprit.
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