The Triversen

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing
American Verse

The Triversen, (triple verse sentence), is a sentence broken into three lines. It has also been referred to as a "verset", a surge of language in one breath.

The Triversen was originated by William Carlos Williams as a "native American" poetic form of the 20^th century. According to Lewis Turco in his Book of Forms, it is "one of the most innovative things done to modern free-verse." It introduced the "variable foot" to free verse. As best as I can understand, the "variable foot" is a phrase or portion of a sentence contained within a line.

The elements of the Triversen are:

1. accentual. The rhythm of normal speech, employing 1 to 4 strong stresses per line.
2. stanzaic, written in any number of tercets. Each tercet is a sentence broken into 3 uneven lines, each an independant clause.
3. grammatical. The sentence is broken by line phrasing or lineating or sense units. There should be 3 units. L1 is a statement of fact or observation, L2 and L3 should set the tone, imply a condition or associated idea, or carry a metaphor for the original statement.
4. unrhymed.
5. alliterated. Alliteration accentuates stress.

    

   Eventide by Judi Van Gorder 8-20-05                                            Sunset silence interrupted by a cursory "rib-it". Diminishing sun slides behind the horizon. Twilight arrives with a hic-up and a wink.

   On Gay Wallpaper by William Carlos Williams The green-blue ground is ruled with silver lines to say the sun is shining. And on this moral sea of grass or dreams like flowers or baskets of desires Heaven knows what they are between cerulean shapes" laid regularly round. Mat roses and tridentate leaves of gold threes, threes, and threes. Three roses and three stems the basket floating standing in the horns of blue. Repeated to the ceiling to the windows where the day Blow in the scalloped curtains to the sound of rain.