{"id":137990869,"date":"2026-03-01T15:24:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T21:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990869"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T16:48:18","slug":"poetry-forms-challenge-2026-pirouette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/poetry-forms-challenge-2026-pirouette\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Forms Challenge 2026: “Pirouette”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirouette poetry form is, according to a 2014 post on the Poetry Forms blog of the Poetry Society of Tennessee<\/a>, an invention of Chuck Belcher, who wrote a collection of them in “Our Daily Grind.” Unfortunately, this is all I could find out about Chuck Belcher. I found mention of the form in a message from poet Judi Van Gorder, aka Tinker, in a post on Poetry Magnum Opus<\/a>, dating back to 2010.<\/p>\n

I have to laugh, every time I see reference to “an invented form.” Aren’t they all invented by someone?<\/p>\n

At any rate, the rules of the form are as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 10 lines (decastich)\n
  2. 6 syllables per line (hexasyllabic)\n
  3. line 5 is repeated in line 6 (punctuation changes are allowed)\n
  4. a turnaround (volta) after line 5, which according to the Poetry Society of Tennessee “must be sharp, taking the thought in a different, hopefully opposite, direction.”\n<\/ol>\n

    In other words, unmetered hexasyllabic decastich with a sharp volta acting as a pirouette between lines 5 and 6. (You hate me now, don’t you?) <\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/p>\n

    Seasons Change<\/h2>\n

    Breezy Spring’s all too brief and
    \nSummer’s end blazes near.
    \nThunder rolls down green hills
    \nand lightning streaks the sky
    \nwhen the west wind blows cold.<\/p>\n

    When the west wind blows cold
    \nand triple-digit heat
    \ngives way to autumn chill
    \nbring kindling for the fire
    \nto ward off Winter’s freeze.\n<\/p>\n

    Your turn!<\/h2>\n

    Give the Pirouette form a try – here, in comments, or on your own blog (leave me a link, here, if you post it publicly – I’d love to read it).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Another form to try!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2774,2730,2773],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-pirouette-poetry-form","tag-poem","tag-poetry-foms"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 05:21:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990869"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990875,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990869\/revisions\/137990875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990869"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}