While many poets favor free verse, experimenting with the terza rima form can add discipline and density to one's poetry. The terza rima rhyme scheme has been employed by many notable poets throughout the course of literature, from Dante to Robert Frost. Many modern poets still employ the terza rima form, which focuses on repetitive rhyme in metered form. The poem punctuates its point in the two lines of its ending couplet, while every other stanza contains 3-line sets called tercets.
Instructions
1. Decide on a topic for your poem. A terza rima poem can be as long as you wish, but you'll want to ensure you select a topic that will give you at least 12 lines worth of material.
2. Master the terza rima rhyme scheme. Think of each unique (non-rhyming) sound at the end of a line as having a new letter assigned to it. If one word rhymes with another, it will share the first word's letter. To follow the terza rima rhyme scheme, ensure each stanza's first line rhymes with its third line (a-b-a). As you begin the next stanza, you'll want to make its first- and third-lines rhyme with the ending sound of your second stanza (b-c-b). This pattern continues throughout the bulk of the poem. A terza rima will usually begin with the rhyme scheme a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c or d-e-d.
3. Create effective tercets. Each stanza in a terza rima poem will have three lines. Depending on your meter, this means you will have a relatively short space in which to convey the point of each stanza. Ensure the points you wish to convey are straightforward, concise and follow the meter you have chosen.
4. Initiate effective meter in your poem. Many terza rima poems fall into iambic pentameter, containing 10 syllables per line of alternately unstressed and stressed syllables. You can select any number of poetic feet per line that you wish and choose the type of meter you prefer (iambic, anapestic, trochaic or synecdochic).
5. Finish the terza rima rhyme scheme. When you are nearing the end of your poem, you will want to end the terza rima format in a strong stanza that continues your meter and finishes your rhyme scheme. The traditional way to do so is with a couplet--two lines that rhyme with each other. You can also end your poem in a tercet, so long as you rhyme the (as of yet) unrhymed sound from the middle of your prior tercet. Some poets even do so in a single line, making its own stanza.
6. End your poem strongly.
