The Trijan Refrain, created by Jan Turner, consists of three 9-line stanzas, for a total of 27 lines. Line 1 is the same in all three stanzas, although a variation of the form is not to repeat the same line at the beginning of each stanza. In other words, the beginning line of each stanza can be different. The first four syllables of line 5 in each stanza are repeated as the double-refrain for lines 7 and 8.
The Trijan Refrain is a rhyming poem with a set meter and rhyme scheme as follows:
Rhyme scheme: ababccddc
Meter: 8/6/8/6/8/8/4/4/8
Source: shadowpoetry.com
On the template below I have colored line 1, indicating that in the formal poem it should be first line of each verse.
Visual Template
In my example, I followed formal protocol for the first complete Trijan Refrain, then lapsed to the ever more popular technique of not requiring first line stanza repetition.
My Example
Crop Circles
Crop Circles are works to amaze.
Sources of awe and hate!
For two score plus, a world-wide craze
to shock and aggravate.
It aggravates the farmers who
lose cash when fields are trampled through.
It aggravates.
It aggravates,
but there’s not much that they can do.
Crop Circles are works to amaze
from ancient times ’til now.
A marvel upon which to gaze,
made in the night somehow.
They were simple in early days.
Mere circles. shown in diff’rent ways.
They were simple,
They were simple.
Complex now, harder to appraise.
Crop Circles are works to amaze
across our planet earth.
Hoaxers we know have made displays
Art forms of splendid girth.
Not all are false; most have proved true.
Could not be made by me or you.
Not all are false,
Not all are false.
Messages require a global view.
Crop formations they are now called.
Using geometry.
Mathematics leave us enthralled
with their complexity,
Math is the same in every land.
Greek, Chinese, Arab understand.
Math is the same.
Math is the same.
So global message must be planned.
Crop formations they are now named,
choose pre-historic sites
like Stonehenge and others so famed
to inscribe their delights.
Unsolved myst’ries believed to be
formed by some intelligentry.
Unsolved myst’ries,
Unsolved myst’ries
clues now distributed widely.
Since I began this poem to write.
This three-D box was made.
Of course it sprang up overnight.
It doesn’t look homemade.
It baffles me what it might mean
laid out so nicely on the green.
It baffles me,
It baffles me.
If it’s a hoax that will be seen.
The Mormons have not staked a claim,
nor have the Jews, I think.
Christians, Buddhists don’t seek acclaim,
some odd cults may, don’t blink.
We don’t know how just over night
Huge shapes appear, proportions right.
We don’t know how,
We don’t know how.
Energy remains at each site.
Mayan themes have been oft addressed.
Celestial cycle lore
hints that earth shall soon be distressed
by changed magnetic core.
We can have help as ancients did,
in building the great pyramid
We can have help,
We can have help.
It could be; that would be splendid.
(c) Lawrencealot – July 6, 2012
(This poem in the strictest sense is NOT a Trijan Refrain, for it violate TWO of the requirements. It is NOT three stanzas, AND it does not repeat the first line of the first stanza, as the first line of the other stanza. It’s failings may make it instructional.)
