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Tercets are a poetic form consisting of three-line stanzas, often with a distinct rhyme scheme like ABA or AAA. This structure allows for concise, impactful storytelling or imagery, with each stanza presenting a complete thought or image.
The form’s brevity and rhythmic potential make it versatile, suitable for both narrative and lyrical poetry. Tercets can create a sense of progression and focus, as the limited lines encourage precision in language and theme. They are used in various poetic traditions, including terza rima, where the interlocking rhyme scheme adds complexity and flow to the poem.
‘Refugee Blues’ by Auden portrays the plight of Jews escaping Nazis, using imagery and blues rhythm to highlight themes of exile and despair.
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
‘The Early Purges’ brilliantly renders the invasive and persistent effect negative memories can have on a person’s life for years.
I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,
‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ is Dylan Thomas’s most famous work, penned in response to his father’s death. This powerful poem urges resistance against the inevitable nature of death, encapsulating Thomas’s rich imagery and universal themes.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
‘Half-Past Two’ utilizes childish vernacular and mismatched capitalization to reflect the stress of a young boy, who in the past was punished for “Something Very Wrong.”
Once upon a schooltime
He did Something Very Wrong
(I forget what it was).
And She said he’d done
Jessica Traynor’s ‘The Artane Band’ explores complex themes of silence and oppression in recent Irish history.
Da used to swing me over the turnstile,
to see the Dublin matches. I remember
the sight of my own legs, dangling.
Stephen Spender confronts the human cost of war, questions of legacy, and the importance of life in ‘War Photograph’.
Where the sun strikes the rock and
The rock plants its shadowed foot
And the breeze distracts the grass and the fern frond,
‘When I am Dead’ emphasises the importance of reconciling not only with death, but with one’s own beliefs.
And I desire to be laid on my side
face down: since I have bad dreams
if I lie on my back.
No one shall see my face when I die.
‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath uses the imaginary thrill of a horseback ride to signify the psychological transformation the rider goes through.
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
‘Genetics’ speaks on the composition of one’s body and how one is made of their mother, father, and their combined history.
My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms.
I lift them up and look at them with pleasure –
I know my parents made me by my hands.
‘Landmark’ by Sheers captures an intimate encounter’s imprint on nature, blending passion with the landscape for a lasting memory.
Afterwards they were timeless
and they lay that way for a while before standing
and dressing, reclaiming their clothes
‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney describes the emotional turmoil experienced by a speaker who has lost a loved one in a traumatic way.
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
‘Thistles’ by Ted Hughes is a visceral poem that likens one of nature’s more persistent plants to human conquests throughout history.
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
‘Wanting to Die’ by Anne Sexton is a poem about the poet’s desire to take her own life. It was written close to ten years before she committed suicide.
Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.
‘In No Man’s Land’ by Stephen Spender is a poem reminding readers that most things, including the tragedies of war, are erased with time.
Only the world changes, and time its tense
Against the creeping inches of whose moons
He launches his rigid continual present.
‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ by Maya Angelou is a memorable poem that focuses on a child. She takes the reader into this child’s mind who expresses superior courage.
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
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