The Quadrille poetry form appears to be an invention of dVerse ~ Poets Pub around 2016. Visit the Pub on alternating Mondays to share your own. Here’s the dVerse ~ Poets Pub schedule if you’d like to try your hand at it using “official” prompts, posting poems in your own blog, and sharing with others in the Pub. Search the site for “quadrille” to read past Quadrille poems.
Basically, your poem must be exactly 44 words long. It needn’t follow any set meter or rhyme scheme.
I first learned about this form from Kaci Cutshaw Rigney in The Stafford Challenge (2026 Cohort). Cleveland Wall created a Quadrille poem using, as a prompt, 44 words found on one page of a book – then jotted them down on paper, cut up the paper, and rearranged the words like magnetic poetry. For mine, I followed Karen Johnson McCaskey’s lead and used a random word generator. The first word it gave me was “prejudice.” I kept that and rolled the dice again, choosing “access” and “axis” from the list. Then I just started free-writing, inserting stronger words where needed, words that flowed better – and removing words that weren’t pulling their weight in pushing me towards that total of 44. Not one word more, not one word less. That dreaded “editing” step is crucial when writing to such constrained forms.
Illusory, the Perfect Union
Built on quarried rock and prejudice,
the old world spins, its crooked axis
tipsy tumbler and twisted key,
a lock to bar good people’s rightful access.
A bureaucratic maze, an entry fee,
a loathsome oath – democracy
was never truly free
for you and me.
Word-Limited Forms
I’m not usually a big fan of micro-flash fiction, six-word stories (that’s barely a sentence, let alone a “slice of life vignette”), a strict 5-7-5 syllable rule as the only defining characteristic of haiku, and so on.
That said, I know that 100-word stories are possible; 44-word poems might give the poet enough elbow room to express a thought, too. And expressing a thought within the constraint of some arbitrary word count is probably a good exercise in brevity for writers who normally struggle to stick to a central idea and try (as I often do) to “boil the ocean” by combining too many thoughts in a single poem or short story.
Try it! Feel free to post your poem in the comments below or share a link to your Quadrille poem(s) posted on your own blog.
You managed to hit it out of the park with just 44 words – something so true and relevant.
I’m going to try my hand at a quadrille although I many not publish.
Feel free to post it in comments here, or plant it in the Garden. 😉 Or not. But I’d love to read it if you write one!