Well I feel so bad now,

Can’t write a paradelle;

Well I feel so bad now,

Can’t write a paradelle;

A paradelle so bad,

Feel now I can’t write well.

It’s a right nasty form,

That keep me up all night;

It’s a right nasty form,

That keep me up all night;

A night up keep me nasty,

It’s that form, all right.

Ain’t no one in this world

Can do that verse and win,

Ain’t no one in this world

Can do that verse and win,

Ain’t no win; that verse and

This world can do one in.

Now I feel bad – can’t a

Form win and keep that right?

In all this world, do up

A verse no one can write?

Night, it’s me, ain’t so well;

That nasty paradelle.

03/09/2004

Author's Note: [A paradelle is a very tough form with the following structure: first through third stanzas, line 1 and 2 repeated, line 3 and 4 repeated, lines 5 and 6 using all the words of lines 1 and 3 in any sensible order. Four stanza uses ALL the words from lines 1 and 3 of the first three stanzas, in any order. The "traditional" form is six-syllable lines (iambic works well). I tried this in the form of a rhyming blues song, which probably made it doubly difficult, and I actually alternated the repeated lines to make it sound more like a "blues". Try one yourself sometime, and then share it when they spring you from the loony bin! d:-p] [P.P.S.: I just learned that the paradelle, which I first encountered in the Billy Collins poem "Paradelle for Susan", was a hoax concocted by Mr. Collins himself. Though I realized the poem itself was a spoof of someone failing miserably at writing a formal poem, I didn't realize that Collins created the form itself just for the poem, and gave it a phony "history" footnote. That stinker!]

Posted on 03/09/2004
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