The Paradelle

by Theresa Malphrus Welford (Editor), Aaron Fagan (Contributor)

A few years ago, I wrote a poem that I titled Paradelle for Susan. It was the only paradelle ever to have been written because I invented the form in order to write the poem. What I set out to do was write an intentionally bad formal poem. Auden said there was nothing funnier than bad poetry, and I thought a horribly mangled attempt at a formal poem might have humorous results. I considered using an already existing form, but I figured enough bad sonnets and bad sestinas are already being written these days without me adding to the pile. . . . The paradelle invites you in with its offer of nursery-rhyme repetition, then suddenly confronts you with an extreme verbal challenge. It lurches from the comfort of repetition to the crossword-puzzle anxiety of fitting a specific vocabulary into a tightly bounded space. While the level of difficulty in most verse forms remains fairly consistent throughout, the paradelle accelerates from kindergarten to college and back to kindergarten several times and ends in a think-tank called the Institute for Advanced Word Play. Thus the jumpy double nature of the paradelle, so unsteady, so schizo, so right for our times. . . . Billy Collins, from the Introduction

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Ken Ronkowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love that what Billy Collins did by inventing the paradelle (parody + villanelle)form, as a way to poke fun at formal poetry, was to create an actual new form. It is ridiculously complex and artificial, and yet has produced some excellent poems.

Collins easily admits that the poems in the anthology are better than his original paradelle which was deliberately written to be bad. Not everyone got the joke when it was first published.

Almost all the poets in this book took the form and content of their paradelles quite seriously and they work. I am prejudiced in my review because one of my poems is included. But I do think the poems work in interesting ways.

[Chispita Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

(second) poetry book!! i dont love poetry (love slams!) but this was so fun! very very structured and unique but i liked seeinf the repetitions of the paradelles and for some readob my amazon purchase-used i think- came with two pages of typed poems as well! and they were my favorites lol. would try more poetry again in the future

[Linda Vituma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Čestertons teica, ka eņģeļi lido, jo uztver sevi viegli. Arī dzeja ceļ spārnos, ja neuztver sevi un viņu pārāk nopietni.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paradelles are awesome!