Barca wrote in décimas some stanzas of Life is a Dream. Nicomedes Santa Cruz made poems about Afro-Peruvian life and culture in décimas. Songs Many songs are in the form of décima. For example, Violeta Parra's Volver a los Diecisiete and 21 son los Dolores. Folk singing manifestation A payada is a sung duel of improvised décimas. Ecuador The Ecuadorian décima is an oral poetic form that exists among the black population of the Esmeraldas Province. A décima consists of 44 lines, each of which generally has eight syllables. A décima consists of one stanza of four lines, and four more stanzas of ten lines each. Each of the four lines of the first stanza is repeated later in the poem. Sometimes when these lines are repeated, they are slightly altered. Patterns of rhyme and meter are not governed by any particular rules. During declamation, there is a pause between stanzas, as well as a pause between the fourth and fifth lines of each ten-line stanza. This is reflected in the structure of the poems as well: a transcription of a décima will invariably have a period or a semicolon at the end of the fourth line. Some older decimeros add an additional pause between the eighth and ninth line of each ten-line stanza. The structure of the décima suggests that it is derived from the Spanish glosa, which also employs eight-syllable lines and a break between the fourth and fifth lines of a ten-line Istanza. Décimas are generally anonymous. Though many decimeros claim to have composed the décimas they recite, this is rarely the case. One scholar of décimas said he met only one decimero who actually composed his own décimas, and that decimeros living in different areas often claimed to have composed the same poems. References Sources Clark, Dorothy Clotelle. "espinela." The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,1993.Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms New York: Penguin, 1979. Coplas y décimas de la tradición lojana, 1990. [Quito] : Centro de Difusión Cultural, Asociación Lojana, [1991?]. . Juan García. La poesía negrista en el Ecuador. Esmeraldas, Ecuador: Banco Central del Ecuador, 1982. . Juan García. Cuentos y decimas afro-esmeraldeñas. Quito, Ecuador : Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1992. . Juan García Salazar. Los guardianes de la tradición: compositores y decimeros : décimas y argumentos de tradición oral en las comunidades afroecuatorianas de Esmeraldas. Esmeraldas,