Poetic Devices: Tricolon

​It’s time for another blog post about the use of poetic devices in picture book writing. Today, we’ll take a look at a more obscure device: Tricolon

Tricolon is a literary device that is made up of three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which occur in quick succession without interruption. This word originates from the Greek word tricolon, meaning “section of a sentence.” These three parallel words, phrases, or clauses may have almost the same length, though this can vary. What is the purpose of tricolon? It provides a sense of wholeness and completeness, and the third part of the phrasing may even add an element of surprise to the sentence.

A famous example of tricolon is the quote “I came, I saw, I conquered” from Julius Caesar (“Veni; vidi; vici.”)  ​This literary device was a wee bit harder for me to find used in children’s books.  I did find many examples of successive short sentences loosely following this structure, but it was a bit of a challenge to find three successive phrases within one sentence. But I did! Hooray!  I’ll use two different picture books to showcase the effective use of this lesser-known literary device.

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​In BUTTON UP! Wrinkled Rhymes by Alice Schertle illustrated by Petra Mathers, I discovered that Schertle uses tricolon in the poem “Hand-me-down SWEATSHIRT”. The key was to find three similar successive phrases within the same sentence. (And Alice also executes this device with PERFECT rhyme and meter! HAT TIP!) Note three successive phrases separated by commas beginning with “been” in this second stanza from the poem:

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I’ve been lost and recovered,
been torn and been sewn,
been dribbled on, tumbled in, rained on and blown.
 

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Years ago, I took a Highlights Foundation Poetry class led by Alice Schertle, who is an amazing poet and lovely person. In workshops that week, she taught us the finer points of meter and rhyme structure. I knew that I might be able to find examples of this more obscure literary device in her published works. Thank you, Alice!

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In the classic 1961 poetry collection HAILSTONES AND HALIBUT BONES by Mary O’Neill, my edition (there have been thirty printings!) illustrated by John Wallace, I found a few more examples. In O’Neill’s adventures in colors throughout the book, find tricolon used in the poem “WHAT IS RED?”

Notice the phrasing “Red is a …” repeated three times in short succession.
 

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Red is a lipstick,
red is a shout,
red is a signal that says: “Watch out!”

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I found a few more examples of tricolon in O’Neill’s timeless book. Find a copy at your library or order one—and I’ll let YOU search for the other examples in a homework assignment! 😊 (Ha ha, no grading from me.) Enjoy adding this technique to your toolbox.
  
by Eileen Meyer, Rhyme Doctor

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