Canzone

I am simply including the inventor's description here, but note, in my template, I have replaced the capital letters with numbers to indicate the chosen words.

I feel this is more conventional or soon should be.

Canzone

The canzone is an Italian form with strong similarities to the sestina. There are no rhymes; instead there are five keywords that determine the structure of the poem. Every line of the poem - and there are 65 lines altogether - ends with one of the keywords, which must appear in a prescribed order.

Here's one I made earlier: 

Bananas

As will be plain to people of good taste,

The least sense of the five is that of smell,

An adjunct merely to ones sense of taste.

Bananas, say, you know best by their taste.

The skin’s not that distinctive to the touch,

But no-one ever could mistake the taste!

That subtly tangy creamy fruity taste!

Now stick one in your ear. What do you hear?

Be honest – there is nothing there to hear.

The whole point of bananas is their taste.

And look at them – there’s not a lot to see.

A yellow boomerang – that’s all you see.

Although perhaps there is more you can see.

On second thoughts, perhaps sight rivals taste.

From looking at its colour, you can see

Whether it’s ripe enough to eat, and see

If it is over-ripe and rank. Though smell

Can tell you that as well, that I can see.

The shape is something else that you can see.

You could of course detect the shape by touch,

But that’s an overrated sense, is touch.

My policy’s believing what I see –

A pretty common one, from what I hear.

Though I don’t credit everything I hear.

You’re bats if you choose fruit by what you hear.

There’s no excuse for that that I can see.

But with a radio you need to hear.

That is the whole point after all, to hear.

With radios there is no role for taste;

It’s all about the programmes you can hear.

It’s true that maybe now and then you’ll hear

A programme on bananas and their smell;

Technology can’t help you smell the smell;

The smell must be evoked by what you hear.

There’s one potentially confusing touch

Called scratch-’n’-sniff – smell comes from what you touch!

Which proves, perhaps, the primacy of touch,

Though here it’s just augmenting what you hear.

In silent moments you can still use touch.

Bananas have some lovely bits to touch -

There’s more that you can feel than you can see.

The curve; which end is which; all told by touch.

To peel one you must use your sense of touch.

You have to peel the thing before you taste…

But there’s more to it than what you can taste.

If wiggled slightly, with a gentle touch,

It will trisect – releasing waves of smell.

The fifth sense, and the least, the sense of smell.

Still, few things are evocative as smell.

Though mankiness you can detect by touch,

It’s better for that to rely on smell.

You needn’t wash your hands if you just smell.

You ought to smell bananas first, d’you hear?

If they are good it’s quite a different smell,

A really very pleasant sort of smell,

And that’s why you should smell your fruit, you see.

It sometimes tells you things that you can’t see.

Bananas with the true banana smell

Are fruit that it is safe for you to taste.

That’s what it’s all about, of course – the taste.

Sometimes a poem leaves an aftertaste,

Some slight suspicion of a musty smell,

The nagging fear the poet’s lost his touch,

Acquired a wooden ear with with which to hear…

Such faults the bard himself can never see.

"Mankiness" may be a Britishism. "Manky" means "rotten, bad, nasty". It comes from either Scots, or English dialect, or Polari (homosexual slang), depending on which dictionary you believe. 

Anyway, as you see, there are five stanzas of twelve lines each, followed by a five-line envoi (which I am tempted to call a tornada, as for the sestina). The pattern of the keywords goes like this:

    stanza 1: ABAACAADDAEE

    stanza 2: EAEEBEECCEDD

    stanza 3: DEDDADDBBDCC

    stanza 4: CDCCECCAACBB

    stanza 5: BCBBDBBEEBAA

    envoi:      ABCDE

No particular line length or metre is prescribed.

Variations

Other structures are possible, apparently, but I have never seen any of them. The one used here is supposed to be the most common (in so far as any kind of canzone could be described as common).

Prescription

Anyone addicted to writing sestinas should be encouraged to write canzones instead, as a kind of aversion therapy. The canzone goes on too long to be enjoyable for either writer or reader, in my opinion.

Pasted from <http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/canzone.htm> 

A big thanks to Bob Newman for the fine Volecentral resource.

My example

Impatient Pleas     (Cazone)

Come lie with me you pretty, pretty thing,

and let us stop our toying with our words. 

Your flirting with me started off this thing 

and now my mind's rejecting any thing 

but ideas of you- no other thoughts 

seem even to amount to anything 

because to lie with you's the only thing 

that promises to make my soul my own. 

My mind minds not directions of my own 

for I most work and tell it that the thing 

I want with you can't be the first and last 

thoughts each hour should I want my job to last. 

You’re such a curvy and becoming thing; 

you beauty leaves me lacking proper words. 

You are a woman for man's betrothing 

for character shines through without sleuthing. 

although a lesser man may hold out thoughts 

that you would be the optimum plaything, 

once stripped of outer and underclothing. 

It is my plan to take you as my own 

while cognizant you're not a thing to own. 

Instruct what I must do- I'll do that thing. 

You're smitten now, and I want that to last 

I'm not your first but wish to be your last. 

How can such ardor ever hope to last- 

It seems almost a supernatural thing? 

When we first kissed I thought "Oh,God! at last" 

I've lived, so now fulfilled, can breathe my last. 

Let Lethe leave behind those unsaid words 

for now I wish this mortal life to last 

for even should I find my soul will last 

I want to cherish you in more than thoughts. 

You must be bundled up with loving thoughts 

accumulated and well built to last 

so when the physical's not ours to own 

your memories will conjoin with my own. 

This is the year that we should make our own 

I'll build a future we're assured will last. 

I'll give you confidence that you will own 

all pieces of that heart I called my own. 

And parsing out my heart's no little thing 

because it's always only been my own 

and you may have it- while it's still my own. 

You'll not have to rely upon my words 

for acttions will be louder than mere words 

and bringing joy to you provides my own. 

So frequently I find you in my thoughts 

and frequently they're very sexy thoughts. 

When we're apart you're with me in my thoughts 

and nature makes all scenery my own. 

The whispers leaves exchange are surely thoughts 

about your luscious form and babbling thoughts 

voiced by the chuckling stream recalls the last 

time it lapped where my illicit thoughts 

will wander although more productive thoughts 

would fit the scheme.  There's no more sensual thing 

than promised passion- not a single thing 

comes close.  the anticipatory thoughts 

may eclipse the act and mock any words 

which may be writ, for they are only words. 

Just know that when you penned the pretty words 

of a sweet kingdom stirred, that my own thoughts 

already were in tune with just those words; 

there'll be no pining there in other words 

for my impatience equal to your own 

confronts and overcomes delays, and words 

are not required to hasten me, though words 

from you are like a siren first and last 

that cannot be ignored.  I know you'll last 

as long as I; I'm burning beyond words 

so hesitation will not be a thing 

permitted as you are my everything. 

Be anxious for that "touch of soft skin" thing. 

Do not expect a waste of time with words. 

A sensual script will emanate from thoughts 

when my urgency meets your very own 

Each time, I'll feel like saying, "here at last".

  

© Lawrencealot - January 7, 2014

Related forms: Bina, Tritina, Quartina, Quintina, Sestina, Newman Sestina, Sidney's Double Sestina, Decrina, and Canzone.

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