An ovillejo is an old Spanish poem that’s a bit like a fun riddle! Miguel de Cervantes, a famous writer, popularised this form around 1547-1616.

The guidelines:

• A 10-line poem
• A 4-stanza poem. The first three stanzas are a rhyming couplet. The first line of each stanza has 8-10 syllables, and the second line has 3-4 syllables.
• The fourth stanza is a quatrain (4-line stanza) that follows the rhyming scheme: cddc
• The tricky part is that the 10th line has 8-10 syllables and is composed of the words from all line 2s.
• In other words:
  • Line 1: a rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 2: a rhyme in 3-4 syllables
  • Line 3: b rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 4: b rhyme in 3-4 syllables
  • Line 5: c rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 6: c rhyme in 3-4 syllables
  • Line 7: c rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 8: d rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 9: d rhyme in 8-10 syllables
  • Line 10: c rhyme in 8-10 syllables: (Line 2) (Line 4) and (Line 6)