Kyrielle Dialog
Type: Structure, Metrical Requirement, Repetitive Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Other Requirement, Stanzaic
Description: This is a kyrielle with two alternating refrains and voices or characters speaking in the poem. The voices and their refrains alternate stanzas. The refrains may rhyme with each other or have other elements in common, such as anaphora.
Attributed to: “The Dread Poet Roberts”
Origin: American
Schematic:
One version is:
aaaR1 bbbR2 cccR1 dddR2, etc.
R1 = refrain of the first character
R2 = refrain of the second character
See the kyrielle for other rhyme schemes internal to the stanza.
Rhythm/Stanza Length:
Pasted from http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/001/160.shtml
My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his years of work on the wonderful Poetrybase resource.
Related Forms: Con-Verse and Converse in Couplets
The Kyrielle Dialog is
Stanzaic, consisting of 3 or more stanzas
Isosyllabic, each line having 8 syllables
Rhymed with several optional rhyme schemes
such as aaaA bbbB cccA dddB or abaB cdcD ebeB fdfD etc.
Dramatic: Alternate stanzas represent separate character voices.
My example
Momma Said (Kyrielle Dialogue)
When you come in please wipe your feet,
don’t hang with hoodlums in the street,
and offer seniors your bus seat,
be circumspect, avoid conceit.
Your mom’s old-fashioned isn’t she?
Such actions, now we seldom see;
that’s why you are great company.
Her notions make great sense to me.
Thank you sweetheart I know you’re right.
She’s always been my guiding light.
She told me I should be polite,
be circumspect, avoid conceit.
© Lawrencealot – October 19, 2014
Visual template
Note iambic meter is not mandated.
