[Susan McLean]

I confess that I don't know the terzanelle form well enough to catch the departures from the rules. I do think that giving oneself the option of varying the repetends in more than punctuation can pay off in a more interesting poem, so I am not bothered by that approach, but if certain lines are supposed to be repeated and they aren't, that is a different matter. Then one can certainly argue about whether the poem fits the form.

I like the title of this poem a lot, and for me there is not just satire, but also pathos in the male subject's inability to remember the plot of anything he watches, which he uses just as sources of facts. Is it early signs of dementia, Asperger's, or mere social ineptitude? Clearly, something is missing. It's funny and sad. I don't read the violence as anything more than TV's standard exploitation of sensationalism. The History Channel does almost nothing but wars and atrocities. That's entertainment, folks. I do enjoy this poem as satire, as character study, and as one more sign that poets, too, are obsessed with trivia. Writing a formal poem can be a lot like doing a crossword puzzle.

Susan

[Martin Elster]

as Martin points out, the last stanza, which is supposed to reach all the way back to S1 for two of its three repeats - to lock the cycle shut - ignores them all.

Actually, looking at the ending again, I see the last line does, in fact, use most of the words from L3 ("trivia from almanacs"). So that's all right. L17 and 18, however, do deviate from what should be repeats of lines 1 & 14.

[Martin Elster]

As Susan said:

I do enjoy this poem as satire, as character study, and as one more sign that poets, too, are obsessed with trivia. Writing a formal poem can be a lot like doing a crossword puzzle.

Formal poems are, indeed, like puzzles. Leonard Bernstein said that music is a game of notes. So I say poetry is a game of words.

[R. Nemo Hill]

In my continuing crusade against summary titles, I think a far better one could be gleaned from Susan's remark: Clearly, Something Is Missing.

I can't really comment on fidelity to the form because I think I would find it so tiresome to adhere to my mind just refuses to parse it. I did enjoy Andrew's and Susan's musing upon the sudden violence that might convulse such a man; and fear I might go the same way if locked in a room with this format, a pen, and paper.

Nemo

[Carol Taylor]

Thanks to those who read Crosswords and commented. I was aghast when I read Cantor's critique about the missing repetend and realized I had submitted the wrong version, but it was too late to do anything about it. I apologize for that slip-up. In the published version, which can be found here on Tilt-a-Whirl, the axe line is gone, replaced by the repeated line 1. I did enjoy the various comments that line generated. It's always fun and informative to see how someone else interprets your words and wonder if they have caught you voicing a subconscious thought.

As for the liberties I took with the other repetends, I make no apologies for what I consider fair technique. I prefer in most cases an echo of a repetend that allows the poem to incorporate previous thought and build on it rather than either a verbatim restatement of the line itself (unless it's a line you'd repeat at that point even if the form didn't require it) or a painful line whose gimmicky punctuation and syntax draw attention to the form and the cleverness of the writer in complying with it, though such an awkwardly crafted line would never otherwise be found in any well-written poem, formal or not. If you have to over-engineer a line to make it comply with the form, why bother to write that particular poem in that particular form in the first place? I do love some of the French forms and think they lend themselves to a well-chosen subject, but all too often the result is nothing more than an exercise, kind of like working a crossword puzzle.

Thanks to Susan for hosting and to Bruce for making the hard choices and giving insight into some highly challenging and fun forms. I guess we aren't voting, but there are a few poems here that have managed to rise above the "exercise" category and become poems in their own right. One is Seasonal. One is Harry. One is the Wings.

Carol

[Michael Cantor]

Carol - I agree with everything you say in the second paragraph above about "over-engineering" (love that expression!) a line, or being overly gimmicky. If you can see the repetend sweating, if it seems forced, it's not working (with the exception of cases where it's done for humorous effect.) Similarly, if the repetend is simply a pleasant little echo - if all it does is say the same thing again, in case the reader is deaf or inattentive, that doesn't work either, unless (always the exception) the repeat provides a strong lyrical echo. But basically, I agree with you.

However - I also feel that unless the repetend is largely similar to the original line, with a few smooth changes to alter meaning (or no changes, but meaning shifting because of surrounding context), the poem doesn't get the benefit of the repeat. Repeating the last word is significantly different, poetically, than repeating a line. (Essentially what I said in my initial crit.)

The solution? Do both! Repeat the line essentially as originally stated, and do it smoothly, without tortured syntax. Work the poem until you can do that, or give up on it.

Do I follow my own advice? Not always. I've published some tortured triolets, and I've sleazed on villanelles. But at night they torment my dreams, the shades of all those twisted repetends!

Kidding aside, I think this is a problem translators also often face. Do you compromise, and where? Do you go with the meter, and lose the rhyme, or good rhyme and forced meter, or get both to work - but subtly alter the meaning? (As a translator yourself, I'm sure you deal with this much more than I do.) And what is interesting is that I have two translator poetry buddies - Rhina Espaillat and Len Krisak - who just about refuse to compromise. They will work and work and work the poem and the word choices until, to the best of their ability, meter and rhyme scheme and meaning are there - and the poem is not forced, and reads well. But it's clear from listening to them that (a) it's not easy, and (b) when they hit all the buttons, the translation glows.

I think the French forms work best when you take a similar approach. If one must compromise, then the approach you took - backing off the repetend, but making certain the the lines flow well - is the way to go. But when it's all there - when the repetends are more or less complete, and make sense, and say something else each time around - it's not as good as good sex, but as you get older it's not a bad substitute!