49. With My Little Rondo Doublé in my Hand

...being another of my attempts to write a poem in a forme fixe, and how a cheeky Lancashire comedian of yore came to my rescue when things weren’t turning out quite right.

There are joys to be had in writing poetry to some sort of established form; the sonnet, the villanelle, the calzone, the sestina - I have had a go at most of them. Its a different sort of writing. A sort that feels like its halfway between writing poetry and solving a crossword puzzle. Not only do you have to get your intended meaning across, you have to play by the rules as well. This can seem like working in a straitjacket at first. You can’t express yourself properly. You cant say the things you want to. You have to find the rhymes, stick to the syllable count. There is an awful lot more to think about than there is when you are writing in blank verse. Yet, writing in blank verse has its pitfalls too. Because you are free to write more or less what you like, the temptation is to write too much, to over egg the pudding. When you write to an established form, you have to be much more economical. You have a finite number of lines to make your point in, so you are forced, in more ways than one, to choose your words carefully.

Writing in this way has another advantage too. It guides you towards choices that you might not have made with blank verse. You have to consider all sorts of ideas and concepts just because they fit the rhythm and rhyme. Of course you have to reject most of them, but some will stick. You will think about your subject in ways that you had not considered before, and sometimes these different perspectives will seem really right, and personal to you, almost as if they have lain dormant in the deepest recesses of your mind, and have been freed by the exercise. Gradually, you put a piece of poetry together that whilst very different to the idea that you might have started out with, is all your own work, and says something that you might never have said otherwise. Thoughts that you had never put into words before have magically been revealed.

So it was with the Rondo Doublé (Double Rondeau or Rondeau Redoublé if you wish to actually look it up), a poetic form which was discussed at the Read to write poetry group by the excellent scholar of all things poetic, John Beal. It is a variant of the Rondeau, which is a form developed in thirteenth century France, and popular as the structure of songs from that period.

Theres a whole slew of devilish rules. Just two rhymes are used repeatedly across six stanzas. Each of the four lines of the first stanza are repeated as the fourth line of the following four stanzas and the first part of the first line is repeated as a short fifth line to conclude the sixth stanza. Easy!

Quite a few poets have been attracted to it. Wendy Cope did a good one, sifting through different types of men, Dorothy Parker also did one - Rondeau redouble (and scarcely worth the trouble at that) . Perhaps there is a clue in Dorothy’s title. Its a bit of a ball ache putting one together.

I had to have a go though. My first attempt began with these lines…

Take what you will from what I do
The stuff that I call poetry
It likely makes no sense to you
It certainly makes none to me

One of my self depreciating themed pieces - It was OK, but I had expressed the idea much better in my short poem on Willie Nelson

I call my Willie Nelson
As he only has one eye
I call my bollocks poetry
Cross my heart and hope to die

Even though the task was done, the idea of a Rondo Double was still playing around in my mind. I must have known on some level that there was something better bubbling under there. And then, George Formby, master of the double entendre, sprang to mind. Whether he sprang there because of the double in doublé or because of the Willie in Nelson, I’m not sure, but he sprang. Most likely because of both these things along with the fact that rondo doublé has the same syllable count as Ukulele. Back in 1933, George Formby released a song called With My little Ukulele in my Hand. Apparently it was the first song ever to be banned by the BBC. So I began another poem, this time called With my Little Rondo Doublé in my Hand. It contains elements of self depreciation, but It also speaks about the feelings I get from performing poetry in front of an audience.

I have always liked George Formby, the daft persona in the films, the seaside postcard humour, the man who could put a knowing wink on an innocent face. At one time he was the top grossing cinema star in Britain, a clear forerunner of Elvis and the Beatles in the world of musical icons turned film stars

I am sure that there is something of the George Formby in my attitude to poetry. I like to imagine that I can capture some of that innocence, and put a bit of wit, craft and guile behind it. I like to think that I don’t come across as all knowing and stuffy, and I know that I am slightly gormless. Gormlessness is undervalued in comedians these days. The loveable idiot has largely been taken over by the wisecracker. The Ken Dodds of this world have been replaced by the Michael Mackintyres. Maybe I am wrong. Bib Monkhouse was a wisecracker and, well I’m sure that it is still possible to make a decent living out of being a gormless idiot, I just cant see anyone doing it, apart from a few politicians.

And so - to the poem. As noted above the traditional way to end a Rondo Doublé is with the half of line one presented at the end of stanza six. I tried that. But it just didn’t seem to provide a satisfactory flourish. In the end - actually just now, after writing this piece and appending the poem to it, I have made the decision to break the rules and just let George do it, with an extra few lines.

With My Little Rondo Doublé in my Hand

With my little rondo doublé in my hand
I rise before the audience and read
And all’s well with the world from where I stand
‘Cause sometimes poetry is all I need

A thought, a word, a rhyme, a verse, a seed
The germ of an idea I can expand
My thoughts will always multiply and breed
With my little rondo doublé in my hand

It never comes out quite as I had planned
Its never perfect, that I must concede
But with all the courage that I can command 
I rise before the audience and read

I rattle through the piece I have at speed
And try to make it not sound dull or bland
And people listen, actually take heed
And all’s well with the world from where I stand

I may be living in cloud cuckoo land
Imagining my verses will succeed
But I don’t mind if I'm never in demand
‘Cause sometimes poetry is all I need

And it feels as if I really understand
And it feels as if my mind is really freed
And it feels so real, so good, so great, so grand
In fact I’m very satisfied indeed
With my little rondo doublé

My little rondo doublé in my hand 
Lawdy, Lawdy
My little Rondo Double in my hand!