Q - Quintilla

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The Quintilla is a Spanish poetic form. 

  • Five-line stanzas

  • Eight syllables per line

  • An ab rhyme scheme in which at least two lines use the "a" rhyme and at least two lines use the "b" rhyme...

  • But the stanza cannot end with a rhyming couplet.

These are the possible rhyme pattern variations:

  • abaab

  • ababa

  • abbab

  • aabab

  • aabba


The most common of these is ABAAB, which is what I used. 

 This is Queen Isabel, my name for her.  I have always seen a woman in a royal type headdress, and my imagination sees the background as ship sails!  You're welcome to see something else, that's the beauty of an abstract without any artist information.  To me this looks like a black ink print over paint.  I bought her at a Goodwill for $5.39, in an amazing, and expensive, frame and matting. 


If Helen launched a thousand ships

in myth. You, Queen, in history,

launched many with commanding lips.

Four, most famous, Columbus' trips,

the world made less a mystery


©2026 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved  



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