B&P’s Shadorma and Beyond – The Villanelle – May 2, 2015

Hello Folks!

We’re smack dab in the middle of spring and I thought it’d be nice to visit an old friend; the Villanelle!

“A villanelle is an ancient Italian pastoral poem, probably originally from Sicily from around the 16th century.  French poets (and then English poets) picked it up in the 18th and 19th century but it never really made its splash until the 20th century when Dylan Thomas and others began to use the form.

The poem is composed of four tercets and then an ending closing stanza of four lines. The first and last refrains are repeated alternatively in the second, third and fourth tercet and then once again in the last stanza.  The first lines of the second through the fourth tercets and the beginning of the closing stanza must rhyme with the refrains … the second lines all throughout the poem rhyme with themselves … complicated to explain but easy to write, believe me … here’s a poem to get you started with color codes to show you how the refrains and rhymes work … there is no special meter or syllable count requirements”

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.

Here’s a painting you might use as inspiration for the Villanelle or a Shadorma (a sextet) with a syllable pattern of 3/5/3/3/7/5:

Odilon Redon – Meditation

Feel free to write a shadorma and/or Villanelle and if you wish use your own artwork (or none at all), the choice is yours!

When you have written your poem(s), please TAG them B&P’s Shadorma & Beyond andMindLoveMisery’s Menagerie. Then add your link to the Mister Linky widget below.

Have a great week!  Ciao, Bastet