Caccia

The following description is reposted with permission from Poetry Magnum Opus, with thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on that fine resource. The example is provided courtesy of Jan Haag.

Caccia in Italian, Catch in English, is a hunting song of the 14th and 15th centuries. It originally included two parts for voices who hunt each other. The lyrics were normally accompanied by a musical instrument.

The elements of the Caccia or Catch are:

  1. known to have been composed with random 11, 7 and 5 syllable lines.
  2. usually carries a refrain at the end of the stanza.
  3. composed favoring onomatopoeia, incomplete phrases and the exclamatory statement.
  4. lyrics framed by stanza and rhyme at the discretion of the poet.

Caccia, by Jan Haag

The only hunting I do
is follow the soul’s
twists through corridors of sorrow and laughter

The wild game is illusive
shyly mocking, chase
cantering, cleaving, crocheting and rocking.

Resting in sleep, rising in
gallop, girding, it
grips, rides my laughter, test my pain, leaps over

river-wide splits in the sea.
Peer down O soul! Peer!
Set me aside in a still water pool, clear

from the maples of autumn
hung from the boughs
glimpsed through surface of still lakes, silent waters.

I will be gone, I will be
the reds and the golds
are but leftovers of greens, greens feed the beasts

Ah, beasts I will leave alone.
They deserve peace more
then the bee buzz of my soul, quiet refrains.

My Example

Form: Caccia

Peaceful Prescription

Uncertain, and unconcerned I set upon
my undaunted daily walk.
Oh, the things I see.
Doves and blue jays and their friends converse with me,
they tweet and twitter, perhaps
just because of me.
How many years I thought I was too busy
to wander willfully. My
doctor says I should.

© Lawrencealot – February 10, 2015

Raccontino

Raccontino:
1. Even numbered lines have the same rhyming sound.
2. Couplets.
3. The end words of the odd numbered lines with the title tell a brief story.
4. The number of couplets is unlimited.
5. The odd numbered lines do not rhyme but tell a story.
6. The even numbered lines are mono-rhymed.
In this example the even numbered mono-rhymes are coast, toast, most, host, boast.
The odd numbered lines tell the story. This Fourth of July July Fourth bursts with independence. The story is in bold.

This Fourth of July

Some grandchildren are away this July,
Two are in New Jersey on the east coast.
We won’t see grandchildren on this Fourth
so to them I salute a happy toast.
As the fireworks display bursts
less abundant than most
I will remember the times with
the grandchildren at the parties we host.
This year we celebrate adolescent independence
and the love of the grandchildren we boast.

http://www.rainbowcommunications.org/velvet/forms/
My Thanks to Linda Varsell Smith for her contributions above.

Raccontino (Italian meaning narrator or story teller) is a poetic narrative written in any number of couplets linked by a single rhyme. Found at Writer’s Café. I’ve been unable to find a history or original example of this form. One source on line suggests this is an English form but no time frame is indicated nor other reasons given for this assumption. Because the name has Italian roots, is syllabic rather than metric (which is more typical of Italian poetry than English poetry) and carries a single rhyme (which is much easier in Italian than English), my assumption is that the frame itself also has Italian roots.

The Raccontino is:
• narrative, tells a story.
• written in any number of couplets.
• syllabic. The number of syllable is set by the first line. Whatever number of syllables occurs in the first line should continue throughout the poem.
• rhymed xa xa xa xa xa xa etc. x being unrhymed.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/1162-raccontino/
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

Specifications restated
Raccontino is most likely of Italian origin.
It is:
A single stanza consisting of any even number of lines.
Rhymed: the rhyme pattern is xaxaxaxa…
Formulaic: The end words in the un-rhymed lines tell a brief story.
Isosyllabic: All lines having the same number of syllables, at the poet’s discretion.

Canzonetta

The Canzonetta or Canzonet and Canzonetta Prime are variations of the Canzone with a more definitive frame. It is a 16th century Italian secular composition often with pastoral, irreverent, or erotic themes.

The Canzonetta or Canzonet is:
• at least 2 octaves, made up of 2 quatrains of alternating rhyme.
• written with no fixed meter or line length.
• composed with a refrain, repeated in L8 of each octave.
• rhymed, ababcdcD, efefgdgD.
• is called a Canzonetta Prime when the rhyme scheme is ababcbcB dbdbebeB. In this rhyme scheme there is often a repeated rhyme word to strengthen the repetition, but it is not required.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1159
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

My example

You Look a Mess (Canzonetta Prime)

If you should choose to go out shopping
while wearing curlers in your hair
or sporting flip-lops that are flopping
Why should anybody care?
Appearance is not cause for dramas
even in the public square.
Although those look like mom’s pajamas
apparently you do not care.

The curlers surely have a cause;
for whom is it that you prepare?
What if you met you own in-laws
or little children you might scare?
With due concern for other folk,
at least you should don leisure wear.
Your disrepair looks like a joke
apparently you do not care.

© Lawrencealot – November 20, 2012

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Canzonetta

Italian Octave

Italian Octave

Type: Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
Description: Iambic pentameter octaves rhymed abbaabba. It is the basis of the first part of the Italian sonnet.
Origin: Italian
Schematic: 
Rhyme: abbaabba
Meter: xX xX xX xX xXR
Rhythm/Stanza Length: 8

Pasted from http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/001/153.shtml
My thanks to Charles L. Weatherford for his years of work on the wonderful Poetrybase resource.

My example

Hanging On (Italian Octave)

More bothersome the gusts became today,
disturbing my tranquility, and more,
as leaves from autumn limbs, the breezes tore.
The wind grew stronger causing limbs to sway,
then gusts removed more leaves, and took them ‘way.
“Don’t strip them all”, I heard myself implore
as more fell quietly to forest floor.
Yet some remained; like me, ’twas not their day.

© Lawrencealot – September 6, 2014

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Italian Octave

Italian Madrigal

Italian Madrigal
Type: Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement
Description: A love song written in either seven or eight-syllable lines made up of two or three triplets followed by one or two rhyming couplets. There is no set rhyme scheme for the triplets.
Origin: Italian
Schematic: A sample schematic: aba bcb cdc dd ee

Pasted from http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/001/152.shtml
My thanks to Bob Newman for his years of work on the wonderful Volecentral resource.

My example poem

Sheets Askew (Italian Madrigal)

My love for you flows like a spring.
It’s not some thing I can control.
The sight of you makes my heart sing.

You’ve touched my heart; you share my soul;
my being resonates with you.
To bring you pleasure is my role.

When you’re asleep with sheets askew
I’m mesmerized- don’t want to sleep;
I’m captivated by the view.

The day that you became my wife
you thoroughly transformed my life.

© Lawrencealot – August 11, 2014

Visual template
For one rhyme scheme in iambic tetrameter.

Italian Madrigal

Cavatina

The Cavatina is a simple rhymed verse. One source, Poet’s Garret, indicates the poetic form originated in Italy in the 14th century. The same poetic frame is also described in Pathways for a Poet by Viola Berg. The frame is suited to both reflective verse which leads to a strong climax or for light verse.

The term can be found in the dictionary as used in 1830 to describe an opertic solo shorter than an aria. On the internet it primarily refers to a classical guitar piece. The term Cavatina does come from the Italian “cavata” which is the production or extraction of sound from an instrument or the Latin “cavus ” to dig or hollow out.

The Cavatina is:
• stanzaic, written in any number of quatrains made up of uneven couplets and finally ending in a declamatory couplet.
• metered, alternating iambic pentameter and iambic dimeter lines. The end declamatory couple is iambic pentameter.
• rhymed. Rhyme scheme xaxa xbxb xcxc, etc. dd. x being unrhymed. The end couplet is rhymed.

Eye of the Beholder by Judi Van Gorder
I never thought my Mom was very pretty–
the glasses ruled.
It was Dad we always deemed the stunning one–
the ladies drooled.
So tall with sea green eyes and wavy hair
he’d win your heart.
We all adored this playful handsome man
who stood apart,
and oh, so smart, he knew that Mom was first class,
her beauty shined right through the wire frames and glass.
Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1155
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.
My example poem

Mad Dogs and Foolish Men Go Out in the Noonday Rain (Cavatina)

My doggie wants to take a walk today
despite the rain.
My wife says “Don’t you dare you foolish man,
just use your brain.”

My dog is clever, knows his mind and says,
“Let us converse.
We’ve walked in wind and strolled through snow, you know,
and that’s much worse.”

At times, you toss the ball into the lake.
Don’t I get wet?
Let’s go! Let’s play I need my exercise,
did you forget?”

I’m sold.  But mommy’s washed and waxed the floor!
We’ll play inside, for daddy knows the score.

© Lawrencealot – August 5, 2014

Rispetto

rispetto, ( Italian:: “respect,” ) plural rispetti,  a Tuscan folk verse form, a version of strambotto. Therispetto lyric is generally composed of eight hendecasyllabic (11-syllable) lines. In its earliest form the rhyme scheme was usually abababcc. Later, the scheme ababccdd became more prominent, and other variations can also be found.
The form reached its pinnacle of both artistic achievement and popularity in the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly in the work of Politian, to whom some 200 rispetti are ascribed. Lorenzo de’ Medicialso wrote rispetti.
Pasted from <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/504518/rispetto>

A Rispetto, an Italian form of poetry, is a complete poem of two rhyme quatrains with strict meter. The meter is usually iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of abab ccdd. A Heroic Rispetto is written in Iambic pentameter, usually featuring the same rhyme scheme.
Pasted from <http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/rispetto.html>

Restated and consolidated rules:
The Rispetto is:
a poem in an octave, made up of 2 quatrains.
most often written in iambic tetrameter 
or it can be syllabic with lines between 8 and 12 syllables.
rhymed rhymed ababccdd or abababcc or abab cddc
 
The Heroic Rispetto is:
a poem in an octave made up of 2 quatrains.
always written in iambic pentameter.
rhymed ababccdd or abababcc or abab cddc
It appears that either may be separate quatrains or
a single octave as the poet prefers.

Example Poem
Heroic Rispetto by Lawrecealot
Rispetto Be or Not to Be
Rispetto is an old Italian form.
It’s English use has been neglected here.
It’s not in books that are the writers’ norm.
But searching yielded samples quite unclear.
What once was standard tetrameter changed.
It now can stretch to hexameter, dear.
If you have penned two stanza poems arranged
in quatrains your Rispetto may be here.
(c) Lawrencealot – April 16, 2012
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Rispetto

Canzone

I am simply including the inventor’s description here, but note, in my template, I have replaced the capital letters with numbers to indicate the chosen words.
I feel this is more conventional or soon should be.
Canzone
The canzone is an Italian form with strong similarities to the sestina. There are no rhymes; instead there are five keywords that determine the structure of the poem. Every line of the poem – and there are 65 lines altogether – ends with one of the keywords, which must appear in a prescribed order.
Here’s one I made earlier:
Bananas
As will be plain to people of good taste,
The least sense of the five is that of smell,
An adjunct merely to ones sense of taste.
Bananas, say, you know best by their taste.
The skin’s not that distinctive to the touch,
But no-one ever could mistake the taste!
That subtly tangy creamy fruity taste!
Now stick one in your ear. What do you hear?
Be honest – there is nothing there to hear.
The whole point of bananas is their taste.
And look at them – there’s not a lot to see.
A yellow boomerang – that’s all you see.
Although perhaps there is more you can see.
On second thoughts, perhaps sight rivals taste.
From looking at its colour, you can see
Whether it’s ripe enough to eat, and see
If it is over-ripe and rank. Though smell
Can tell you that as well, that I can see.
The shape is something else that you can see.
You could of course detect the shape by touch,
But that’s an overrated sense, is touch.
My policy’s believing what I see –
A pretty common one, from what I hear.
Though I don’t credit everything I hear.
You’re bats if you choose fruit by what you hear.
There’s no excuse for that that I can see.
But with a radio you need to hear.
That is the whole point after all, to hear.
With radios there is no role for taste;
It’s all about the programmes you can hear.
It’s true that maybe now and then you’ll hear
A programme on bananas and their smell;
Technology can’t help you smell the smell;
The smell must be evoked by what you hear.
There’s one potentially confusing touch
Called scratch-’n’-sniff – smell comes from what you touch!
Which proves, perhaps, the primacy of touch,
Though here it’s just augmenting what you hear.
In silent moments you can still use touch.
Bananas have some lovely bits to touch –
There’s more that you can feel than you can see.
The curve; which end is which; all told by touch.
To peel one you must use your sense of touch.
You have to peel the thing before you taste…
But there’s more to it than what you can taste.
If wiggled slightly, with a gentle touch,
It will trisect – releasing waves of smell.
The fifth sense, and the least, the sense of smell.
Still, few things are evocative as smell.
Though mankiness you can detect by touch,
It’s better for that to rely on smell.
You needn’t wash your hands if you just smell.
You ought to smell bananas first, d’you hear?
If they are good it’s quite a different smell,
A really very pleasant sort of smell,
And that’s why you should smell your fruit, you see.
It sometimes tells you things that you can’t see.
Bananas with the true banana smell
Are fruit that it is safe for you to taste.
That’s what it’s all about, of course – the taste.
Sometimes a poem leaves an aftertaste,
Some slight suspicion of a musty smell,
The nagging fear the poet’s lost his touch,
Acquired a wooden ear with with which to hear…
Such faults the bard himself can never see.
“Mankiness” may be a Britishism. “Manky” means “rotten, bad, nasty”. It comes from either Scots, or English dialect, or Polari (homosexual slang), depending on which dictionary you believe.
Anyway, as you see, there are five stanzas of twelve lines each, followed by a five-line envoi (which I am tempted to call a tornada, as for the sestina). The pattern of the keywords goes like this:
    stanza 1: ABAACAADDAEE
    stanza 2: EAEEBEECCEDD
    stanza 3: DEDDADDBBDCC
    stanza 4: CDCCECCAACBB
    stanza 5: BCBBDBBEEBAA
    envoi:      ABCDE
No particular line length or metre is prescribed.
Variations
Other structures are possible, apparently, but I have never seen any of them. The one used here is supposed to be the most common (in so far as any kind of canzone could be described as common).
Prescription
Anyone addicted to writing sestinas should be encouraged to write canzones instead, as a kind of aversion therapy. The canzone goes on too long to be enjoyable for either writer or reader, in my opinion.
A big thanks to Bob Newman for the fine Volecentral resource.
 
My example
 
Impatient Pleas     (Cazone)
 
Come lie with me you pretty, pretty thing,
and let us stop our toying with our words. 
Your flirting with me started off this thing 
and now my mind’s rejecting any thing 
but ideas of you- no other thoughts 
seem even to amount to anything 
because to lie with you’s the only thing 
that promises to make my soul my own. 
My mind minds not directions of my own 
for I most work and tell it that the thing 
I want with you can’t be the first and last 
thoughts each hour should I want my job to last. 
 
You’re such a curvy and becoming thing; 
you beauty leaves me lacking proper words. 
You are a woman for man’s betrothing 
for character shines through without sleuthing. 
although a lesser man may hold out thoughts 
that you would be the optimum plaything, 
once stripped of outer and underclothing. 
It is my plan to take you as my own 
while cognizant you’re not a thing to own. 
Instruct what I must do- I’ll do that thing. 
You’re smitten now, and I want that to last 
I’m not your first but wish to be your last. 
 
How can such ardor ever hope to last- 
It seems almost a supernatural thing? 
When we first kissed I thought “Oh,God! at last” 
I’ve lived, so now fulfilled, can breathe my last. 
Let Lethe leave behind those unsaid words 
for now I wish this mortal life to last 
for even should I find my soul will last 
I want to cherish you in more than thoughts. 
You must be bundled up with loving thoughts 
accumulated and well built to last 
so when the physical’s not ours to own 
your memories will conjoin with my own. 
 
This is the year that we should make our own 
I’ll build a future we’re assured will last. 
I’ll give you confidence that you will own 
all pieces of that heart I called my own. 
And parsing out my heart’s no little thing 
because it’s always only been my own 
and you may have it- while it’s still my own. 
You’ll not have to rely upon my words 
for acttions will be louder than mere words 
and bringing joy to you provides my own. 
So frequently I find you in my thoughts 
and frequently they’re very sexy thoughts. 
 
When we’re apart you’re with me in my thoughts 
and nature makes all scenery my own. 
The whispers leaves exchange are surely thoughts 
about your luscious form and babbling thoughts 
voiced by the chuckling stream recalls the last 
time it lapped where my illicit thoughts 
will wander although more productive thoughts 
would fit the scheme.  There’s no more sensual thing 
than promised passion- not a single thing 
comes close.  the anticipatory thoughts 
may eclipse the act and mock any words 
which may be writ, for they are only words. 
 
Just know that when you penned the pretty words 
of a sweet kingdom stirred, that my own thoughts 
already were in tune with just those words; 
there’ll be no pining there in other words 
for my impatience equal to your own 
confronts and overcomes delays, and words 
are not required to hasten me, though words 
from you are like a siren first and last 
that cannot be ignored.  I know you’ll last 
as long as I; I’m burning beyond words 
so hesitation will not be a thing 
permitted as you are my everything. 
 
Be anxious for that “touch of soft skin” thing. 
Do not expect a waste of time with words. 
A sensual script will emanate from thoughts 
when my urgency meets your very own 
Each time, I’ll feel like saying, “here at last”.
  

 

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Rishal

The Rishal is a recent invented form which appears to be a “chained” version of the Terza Rima without a linking rhyme. It was created by “Chindarella” at All Poetry.

Stanzaic:                Three tercet stanzas plus a single line stanza
Isosyllabic:             Decasyllabic lines  (10 syllables) (10/10/10)
Rhyme Pattern:   aba cdc efe ghg x (end-rhyme and internal rhyme)
Refrain:                 The first line of each stanza consists of two
five syllable sections, The last section of line 1
becomes the first section of line 1 in the next stanza.

The 2nd line in each stanza must have internal rhyme with the 5th syllable
rhyming with the 10th.

The final line does not need to rhyme;

____

The Rishal is:
○ Stanzaic, written in 3 or more tercets with a concluding single line, the same as the Terza Rima.
○ Syllabic rather than metric, lines of 10 syllables each, (iambic pentameter without the iambic pattern requirement). L1 of each stanza is written in 2 hemistiches.
○ Rhymed, internal rhyme is employed in L2 of each stanza, the 5th syllable of the line rhyming with the end syllable, (I imagine a little flexibility in the placement of the internal rhyme could be overlooked by other than the purist.) Rhyme scheme a (b-b) a / c ( d-d) c / e (f-f) e / etc . The single end line is unrhymed.
○ Written in a chain from stanza to stanza by repeating the 2nd hemistich of L1 of the previous stanza in the 1st hemistich of L1 of the next stanza and so on. . . including the last single line repeating the 2nd hemistich of L1 of the previous stanza as the 1st hemistich of the single line

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1146
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for years of work on this fine PMO resource.

Example Poem

NOTE: It was confirmed by Chindarella on DEC. 26th, 2014 that the original specifications for the Rishal were for exactly three tercets, not three or more.  

All But Children Know  (Form: Rishal)

We all are forewarned, no one is surprised.
Though death awaits all, we all may ride tall.
We can’t write death out; script can’t be revised.

No one is surprised that our days will end
By some grand design, while most parts are fine
there are no clues that Death’s presence portend.

That our days will end, all but children know.
How poor we’d be served if fear were deserved.
Such in not the case, play, love, give, then go.

All but children know what we have is now.

(c) Lawrencealot -April 29, 2013

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Rishal

 
 

Italian Sestet

Italian Sestet
The original version of the Italian Sestet had no set meter, 
but after it was introduced into England by Spenser, 
eventually the poets there began to use iambic tetrameter 
or pentameter. The rhyme pattern example is as follows (Using iambic tetrameter)
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
 
Example Poem
 
Let’s Write an Italian Sestet
 
An Italian Sestet we’re to write. 
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM. 
Use Tetrameter- (four fine feet). 
Delay the rhyme that makes it right. 
There’re only two more rhymes to come 
then we are done.  Now ain’t that sweet? 
 
© Lawrencealot – July 25, 2012
 
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