Ovillejo poems

 Ovillejo originates from Spanish and it means a ball of yarn. It was made famous by Miguel de Cervantes  in his work , Don Quixote.  This form of poetry consists of 10 lines.  The rhyme scheme is aa bb cc cddc . It begins with 3 couplets. The first line of each couplet consists of 8 syllables and the second line has 4 syllables . Traditionally the first lines of the couplets  are questions and the second lines are answers . Followed by the couplets is a quatrain. This quatrain consists of 8 syllables in the first 3 lines and the last line is the combination of second , fourth and sixth lines of the whole poem . This quatrain is trochaic (meaning stressed syllable is followed by unstressed. For more refer to roundabout form where all the poetic foot are discussed) and it is called redondilla . Which itself is a separate form of poetry. 

So in short this form looks like this

L1. 8 syllables (a)

L2. 4 syllables (a)

L3. 8 syllables (b)

L4 4 syllables (b)

L5 8 syllables (c)

L6 4 syllables (c)

L7  8 syllables(c)

L8 8 syllables(d)

L9 8 syllables (d)

L10  L2 + L 4 + L6 [ 12 syllables] (c)

Here comes an example 

What undermines all I attempt?

Contempt!

What heaps sorrow onto me?

Jealousy!

And what gnaws me through and through?

Missing you!

That’s why nothing will do

to make my distress less -

I’m killed by hopelessness,

contempt, jealousy and missing you!

 A translation of Cerventes' work by Paul Archer

Points to remember :

    1. It need not be the traditional question and answer form.

    2. 10 lines syllable count being ( 8+ 4) x 3 + ( 8 + 8+8+ 12).

    3. Rhyme scheme is aabbcccddc.

     4. Can be Trochee words but not necessary.

Tips :

   1. To begin with just follow the rhyme scheme and syllable count.

 2. Get a strong theme that would be suitable for this form.

3. Let it flow

Note: None of the poems we present belong to us. We present an organized record and analysis of them. All copyrights are reserved to the original author and we are not using plagiarized work. The originality of the writes is verified to the fullest extent we can.

- Radhuga , member , team  PoeTreeFoRest