Virelai: Poetic Forms

Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the virelai, a French form with nine-line stanzas and alternating rhymes.

Virelai Poems

The virelai is a French poetic form with alternating rhymes and line lengths. Here are basic guidelines:

nine lines per stanza
lines one, two, four, five, seven, and eight have five syllables
lines three, six, and nine have two syllables
the five-syllable lines rhyme with each other and the two-syllable lines rhyme with each other to make the following rhyme patter: aabaabaab
the end rhyme for the short lines continues on in the following stanza
the final stanza's short-line end rhyme should be the same as the long-line end rhyme in the opening stanza (to complete the end-rhyme circle)

Note on stanzas: This form can contain as few as two stanzas to infinity (if you could write that many). My example below has three stanzas, but this can change.

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Here’s my attempt at a virelai:

talk the talk, by Robert Lee Brewer

talkers like to talk
& walkers will walk
without
weighing who to block
or watching the clock
about
when to tick or tock
or pick up a rock
& shout

there's never a doubt
about the right route
to take
whether north or south
or straight from her mouth
to make
a smile into pout
or a with without
real fake

& see what's at stake
in a william blake
or mock
poem to forsake
near the shallow lake
we talk
about what we fake
when we'd rather take
a walk

french poetic forms

Robert Lee BrewerAuthor

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of Solving the World's Problems, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.