Grappling with Ottavo Rima

In the quest for a sonetto rispetto,
I rummage in the archives of my mind, where
I find the ghosts of poems to set fire to
and let the words drift in the cold morning air.
Words turn into iridescent birds, undo
my heart, fray my resolve, challenge with a dare
to grasp as many words as my hands can hold,
write as many lines as my pen can unfold.

Slowly, the embryo verse starts to flower,
words swarm like black beetles bumbling into spring;
although cold and foreign night tries to enter,
the sun, already risen, lights everything.
The lines, composed of many florets, prosper,
dusted with imagery, polished with rhyming,
until my ottavo rima, newly born,
stretches its youthful limbs, yawns, and greets the dawn.

Kim M. Russell, 21st March 2024

Image by Erin Johnson on Unsplash

This Thursday at the dVerse Poets Pub, Grace is hosting Meeting the Bar with a Poetry Form prompt: Ottavo Rima or Sonneto Rispetto. She not only explains this Italian poetry form, but also give us some historical background.

I love the names given to this form, especially Sonnetto Rispetto, meaning little song of respect, and that it is not a sonnet at all, but traditionally a narrative epic often written in a series of octaves. However, it does at first seem to be a rather complex form, especially as the most prominent example of Ottava Rima in English literature is Byron’s Don Juan!

Grace would like us to write poems in eight-line octaves, in which each line has a ten or eleven syllable count per line, and follows the rhyme scheme:

one octave poem – abababcc
two octave poem – abababcc  dededeff
three octave poem – abababcc  dededeff  ghghghii

We should aim to blend serious and satirical attitudes, with a final couplet that sums up and brings a twist or enlightenment to the content of the stanza. Mine is a draft, with an eleven syllable count per line, which explores how challenging it was to write it!

25 thoughts on “Grappling with Ottavo Rima”

  1. I love the writing process, akin to the spring awakening of the bud to a spring flower. From embryo verse to the polishing and edited ottavo rima poem. Love this part specially: sun lights everything. 

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  6. You did a great job birthing this poem. Enjoyed reading this 🙂

    Slowly, the embryo verse starts to flower,
    words swarm like black beetles bumbling into spring;

    Liked by 2 people

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  12. Beautiful! I especially like “Slowly, the embryo verse starts to flower,
    words swarm like black beetles bumbling into spring;
    although cold and foreign night tries to enter,
    the sun, already risen, lights everything.”

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

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