Double Glose
Type: Structure, Repetitive Requirement, Other Requirement
Description: The double glose uses each line of the texte as a refrain, twice in the poem. One was done as a Stave where the line is both first and last of the glossing verse.
Origin: Spanish/Portuguese
Schematic: Varies
Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/92.shtml>
My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his years of work on the wonderful Poetrybase resource.
Since there are numerable differences in the interpretation of the proper formal requirement of the Glose, sub-forms have been invented which specifically mandate requirements which might or might not be chosen when writing a Glose.
The glose originated in Spain, where it is known as the glosa.
I am presenting here only one reference to the Glose itself, from a site which appears no longer active, (November 2014) but which presented the following fine overview.
WHAT IS A GLOSA POEM?
The Glosa was used by poets of the Spanish court and dates back to the late 14th and early 15th century. For some reason, it has not been particularly popular in English. A search of the Internet search will uncovered a meager number of brief references to the form. From the limited information it is learned that the traditional structure has two parts. The first part is called the texte or cabeza. It consists of the first few lines (usually four) or the first stanza (usually a quatrain) from a well-known poem or poet. It has become permissible to use lines from a less well-known poet, or even from ones own verse.
The second part is the glose or glosa proper. This is a “gloss on,” an expansion, interpretation or explanation of the texte. The formal rule describes the glosa as consisting of four ten-line stanzas, with the consecutive lines of the texte being used as the tenth line (called the glossing) of each stanza. Furthermore, lines six and nine must rhyme with the borrowed tenth. Internal features such as length of lines, meter and rhyme are at the discretion of the poet. Examples of this will be found in this chapbook collection.
As with most poetic forms, unless dictated by strict contest requirements, poets have taken the liberty to vary the format. In addition to the glosa’s traditional ten-line stanzas, one will find 4-, 5- and 8-liners. They will be found written in free verse, with meter, and with rhyme. In the shorter variations. You will find variations in which the first line of each stanza (taken from the original texte) repeated again as the last line – added as a refrain. When the first line is repeated as the refrain at the end of a poem the stanza form is referred to as an Envelope.
Another variation of a short glosa poem has to do with the location of the borrowed line. It can be the first line, the last line, or one inserted into the body of the stanza. Yet another variation is the use of the first four lines of a prose piece as the texte.
Pasted from <http://www.poetry-nut.com/glosa_poetry.htm>
Restated specification for the Double Glose
The first part is called the texte or cabeza. It consists of the first few lines (usually four) or the first stanza (usually a quatrain) from a well-known poem or poet. It has become permissible to use lines from a less well-known poet, or even from ones own verse. It is presented as an epigram beneath the title of your own poem
The following Glose or Glosa proper is
Stanzaic: consisting of as many stanzas, as there are lines in your texte,
each having a line length of the poets choosing
Metered: With a consistent meter of the poet’s choosing
Rhymed or not with a pattern of the poet’s choosing
Formulaic: Each line of the texte shall be both the first and list lines of succeeding stanzas.
Related forms listed here: Glose, Double Glose, Top Glose
Example Poem
Too sweet and too subtle for pen or for tongue
In phrases unwritten and measures unsung,
As deep and as strange as the sounds of the sea,
Is the song that my spirit is singing to me.
-from Song of the Spirit
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
Too sweet and too subtle for pen or for tongue,
my thoughts dance and flutter on gossamer wings.
Elusively trapped in the webs I have spun
feelings that from my soul’s core have been wrung
in poems conceived when my heart soars and sings.
Too sweet and too subtle for pen or for tongue.
In phrases unwritten and measures unsung,
I long to give birth to them, set them all free.
The source I must find from which they have sprung,
then gathers the jewels I will find there among,
hat I might expound them in my poetry.
In phrases unwritten and measures unsung.
As deep and as strange as the sounds of the sea,
where voices of whales transverse distance and time,
all coming together in sweet harmony,
a harvest of gold born of my own psyche
are verses all written in metrical rhyme.
As deep and as strange as the sounds of the sea.
Is the song that my spirit is singing to me
forever to be an elusive refrain
that haunts me and taunts me with sweet melody
while mem’ry deserts me, ignores every plea?
I cannot quite grasp or its beauty retain:
Is the song that my spirit is singing to me.
© Patricia Curtis, 2011
Pasted from <https://poetscollective.org/blog/2014/11/song-of-the-spirit/>
Visual template for this Double Glose
This poet chose sestet stanzas in catalectic amphibrach tetrameter,
With each stanza’s rhyme scheme being AbaabA.
