Labyrinth Men

Labyrinth Men is John Beach’s ninth collection of poetry. The 36 terzanelle poems in this collection are mostly the ranting of a middle-aged man who’s feeling even older than that.

The terzanelle is a French/Italian adaptation of the terza rima to the villanelle form. Each terzanelle is meant to be 19 lines long (ten syllables each), composed of five triplets with a concluding quatrain, and are written in iambic pentamater. I don’t pay much attention to where my metrical feet are stepping, but I enjoy the puzzle-like nature of this form and the subtlety of the repeating lines, the variations in meaning. I also enjoy breaking the lines and changing punctuation.