Triolet
Quick answer: How to write a triolet: eight lines, two rhymes and two refrains in the pattern ABaAabAB. History from medieval France to Hardy, plus craft advice.
Eight lines, and five of them are repeats. On paper the triolet looks like a rounding error of a poem, yet poets from medieval France to Thomas Hardy have used it to say things that longer forms fumble. The first line appears three times, the second line twice, and the whole machine turns on how the meaning of those lines bends as their context changes.
Because you only write five original lines, every one of them is under a spotlight. The triolet is often recommended as a first repeating form, and it is, but do not mistake small for easy. It is a haiku's discipline wearing a dancing shoe.
Seven centuries of the same eight lines
The triolet appears in French manuscripts from the late thirteenth century, growing out of the same round-dance songs that produced the rondeau family; its name suggests the triple appearance of the opening line. Medieval poets used it for courtly compliments and jokes. In seventeenth-century England, Patrick Carey wrote devotional triolets, and the form then slept until the Victorian revival of French shapes.
Robert Bridges brought it back seriously, and Hardy gave it teeth: his triolets, including Birds at Winter Nightfall and How Great My Grief, show the form carrying bleakness as comfortably as charm. Frances Cornford's To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train (1910) is probably the most anthologised triolet in English.
The pattern: ABaAabAB
Capital letters mark repeated lines. Line 1 (A) returns as lines 4 and 7; line 2 (B) returns as line 8. Lines 3 and 5 rhyme with A, line 6 rhymes with B. So the poem uses two rhyme sounds and only five distinct lines.
Writing one that turns
Start with a two-line sentence you would be happy to end on, because you will: lines 7 and 8 are lines 1 and 2 again. The best refrain pairs are hinged, where line A can complete different thoughts depending on what precedes it. Punctuation is your quiet ally here; many fine triolets change a comma or a question mark at a repeat to tilt the sense without changing a word.
Then use lines 3, 5 and 6, your only free lines, to swing the poem's angle. A triolet typically states something, complicates it, and restates it so the same words now sound ironic, or grief-struck, or resigned. Contest judges reading for structure notice this instantly; a triolet that genuinely turns is a small proof of craft, and Writory's monthly contest has seen more than one score well for exactly that.
Best subjects and the classic failure
Triolets suit wit, flirtation, small griefs and observations that gain from being circled: weather, habits, the way a feeling refuses to leave. They cannot hold plot or argument; there is no room.
The classic failure is repetition without revolution. If lines 4, 7 and 8 mean exactly what they meant the first time, you have written one idea three times. Before calling it finished, ask what changed between the first A and the last: if the honest answer is nothing, revise the free lines until the echo stings.
What poets can take from this
- Draft the opening couplet as a sentence you could also end a poem with, since you will.
- Choose a hinged first line that reads differently after a question, a confession or a joke.
- Use punctuation changes at the repeats to shift meaning without breaking the form.
- Keep to one image or moment; eight lines cannot host two.
- Pick common rhyme sounds so lines 3, 5 and 6 do not sound wrenched.
- Read the final version aloud and check that line 8 lands with more weight than line 2 did.
Try it yourself
Write a triolet in which line one is a promise somebody made to you, and let the repetitions move it from sincere to doubtful to broken.
Questions
What is the rhyme scheme of a triolet?
ABaAabAB, where capital letters are repeated lines. Line 1 appears three times (lines 1, 4 and 7) and line 2 appears twice (lines 2 and 8), all on just two rhyme sounds.
How many original lines do you actually write in a triolet?
Five. Of the eight lines, line 1 is reused twice more and line 2 once more, so only lines 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are freshly composed. That compression is the form's whole challenge.
Can a triolet be serious, or is it just light verse?
It handles both. The form's reputation is playful, but Thomas Hardy used triolets for desolate subjects, and modern poets regularly use the repetitions to evoke grief or obsession. The turning refrain is emotionally neutral machinery; you decide the cargo.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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