Villanelle

The Villanelle

AGENDA:

Continue to work on Gannon and Sokol enbtries

Another form:  The Villanelle

Villanelles

The form, according to Turco:

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A2 (refrain)

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A2 (refrain)

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A1 (refrain)

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EXAMPLES:

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary darkness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said.

But I grow old and I forget your name.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;

At least when spring comes they roar back again.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

--Sylvia Plath

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The Waking

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

--Theodore Roethke

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One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing further, losing faster:

places and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

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Villanelle for D.G.B.

Every day our bodies separate,

exploded torn and dazed.

Not understanding what we celebrate

we grope through languages and hesitate

and touch each other, speechless and amazed;

and every day our bodies separate

us farther from our planned, deliberate

ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,

not understanding what we celebrate

when our fused limbs and lips communicate

the unlettered power we have raised.

Every day our bodies' separate

routines are harder to perpetuate.

In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,

not understanding what we celebrate;

wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late

morning as the wind tears off the haze,

not understanding how we celebrate

our bodies. Every day we separate.

--Marilyn Hacker

An excellent example of the form is Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night”:

     Do not go gentle into that good night,
     Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

     Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
     Because their words had forked no lightning they
     Do not go gentle into that good night.

     Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
     Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

     Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
     And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
     Do not go gentle into that good night.

     Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
     Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

     And you, my father, there on the sad height,
     Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
     Do not go gentle into that good night.
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.