Like so many other French forms, the Retourne is all about repetition. It contains four quatrains and each line has eight syllables.
(16 lines, 8/8/8/8)
The trick is that the first stanza’s second line must also be the second stanza’s first line, the first stanza’s third line is the third stanza’s first, and the first stanza’s fourth line is the fourth stanza’s first.
Retournes do not have to rhyme. (rhyme optional)
Example Poem
Abandoned
I’d loved her only all my life.
She found another to her taste.
She left me– I now have no wife.
New city, no friends; joys erased.
She found another to her taste.
I begged, pleaded, asked her to stay
“I miss you, come back! what a waste,
keeping your lover is okay.”
She left me– I now have no wife.
Anquish bestirred me. I tried drink.
But quit to give my boys a life.
Work, feed the boys, cry, try to think.
New city, no friends; joys erased.
It took a long while, ‘ere I tried
to date– I was feeling disgraced
How could I ever lose my bride?
© Lawrencealot – April, 2012
Visual Template
(16 lines, 8/8/8/8)
The trick is that the first stanza’s second line must also be the second stanza’s first line, the first stanza’s third line is the third stanza’s first, and the first stanza’s fourth line is the fourth stanza’s first.
Retournes do not have to rhyme. (rhyme optional)
Example Poem
Abandoned
I’d loved her only all my life.
She found another to her taste.
She left me– I now have no wife.
New city, no friends; joys erased.
She found another to her taste.
I begged, pleaded, asked her to stay
“I miss you, come back! what a waste,
keeping your lover is okay.”
She left me– I now have no wife.
Anquish bestirred me. I tried drink.
But quit to give my boys a life.
Work, feed the boys, cry, try to think.
New city, no friends; joys erased.
It took a long while, ‘ere I tried
to date– I was feeling disgraced
How could I ever lose my bride?
© Lawrencealot – April, 2012
Visual Template
