This week’s challenge from W3 Poetry Prompt #182 invites you to write a Triolet — a short, musical poem that loops back on itself through repetition and rhyme — celebrating the ordinary. To read the full prompt and poetry form guidelines from Poet of the Week, Sarah Whiley, please click below.
Click here to open the Prompt’s Guidelines
🖋️ What’s a Triolet?
A Triolet is an 8-line poem where lines repeat in a beautiful rhythm:
- Lines 1, 4, and 7 are the same, and lines 2 and 8 are also repeated.
- The rhyme scheme looks like this: ABaAabAB (uppercase = repeated lines).
If you’d like to make it a little trickier, try writing each line with 8 syllables (iambic tetrameter, the classic French style) — or challenge yourself with 10 syllables per line (the English version).
You can find more details and examples here:
Shadow Poetry – Triolet
I wrote about An Ordinary Man along with a companion triolet about An Ordinary Woman.
An Ordinary Man
I am only an ordinary bloke.
I likes the plain and simple things in life.
Do you think that’s funny? It ain’t no joke.
I am only an ordinary bloke.
I like to speak plain, and love a good joke—
You can tell that by looking at me wife.
I am only an ordinary bloke.
I likes the plain and simple things in life.
—Lesley Scoble, October 2025
Music Audio — An Ordinary Man
An Ordinary Woman
I am just an ordinary housewife.
I’ve no airs or graces—oh no, not me.
I simply like the simple things in life.
I am just an ordinary housewife.
I cook and… you know what—I’m a good wife.
I can only be what I’m meant to be.
I am just an ordinary housewife.
I’ve no airs or graces—Oh no, not me.
—Lesley Scoble, October 2025
Music Audio — An Ordinary Woman
THANK YOU
Thank you Sarah, for your extraordinary ordinary prompt.
Thank you, as always, David, for your inspiration and creative encouragement.
And thank you, dear reader, for spending time with my poems. 🙏
To discover more and to join in the W3 Poetry Prompt please follow the link below.
LesleyScoble.com 
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