It Not Do Fall For: on The Paradelle

Michael Theune, Illinois Wesleyan University

Abstract

With the invention of the paradelle form by poet Billy Collins and the furtherance of the paradelle in Theresa M. Welford’s The Paradelle: An Anthology (Red Hen Press, 2005), a new hoax has entered poetry’s domain. However, while somewhat similar to Warner’s hoaxes, the paradelle hoax is in many ways unique, and uniquely problematic—though increasingly interesting.

Originally published in Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing and used with permission.