Poetry Pals - Week 28 - Write a Villanelle - ‘I Dare to Tease Death’
(Not Killing Eve, though that’s a poem to write, a villanelle about Villanelle 💁🏼♀️)
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Hello my wonderful poetry people,
This week over at
we were looking at villanelles. Not something I’ve done before. And I’m starting to realise how bad our poetry section of my Writing, Stories, and Myths section of my English Literature degree was. Mainly we would be read a poem, and told to go write another using the first line. And that was that.Your Writing Prompt For This Week.
Write a Villanelle.
Simple eh?
Well, I’d not looked into this form before and using both of the examples and lessons Nelly provided and finding my own - this is what a villanelle is (from masterclass.com)
Villanelles create a melody with words, crafting imagery and emotion through the power of repetition. To write your own contemporary villanelle poem, follow the structure below:
1. Length: A villanelle is 19 lines broken up into five tercets (three-line stanzas), with the sixth stanza containing four lines. When it comes to the individual lines, there isn’t a specific length or meter, though many poets like to use iambic pentameter.
2. Rhyme scheme: Each tercet of a villanelle’s rhyme scheme contains an ABA rhyme scheme, except for the final stanza, which follows an ABAA rhyme scheme.
3. Repetition: The first line of the first stanza is a refrain line that gets reused throughout the poem. It is the same as the last line of the second and fourth stanza, as well as the penultimate line of the last stanza. The third line of the poem serves as the last line of the third stanza, fifth stanza, and final stanza. This means that many of the lines of your villanelle have already been written after you’ve completed the first stanza.
4. Ending: The last stanza is a final quatrain, ending with a couplet (which means the final line of this stanza should rhyme with the one before it).
Dylan Thomas’ poem (below) is a fantastic example of such a poem, spoken here by the marvellous Michael Sheen.
As usual my mind went dolally and I spent a whole night desperately trying to sleep whilst my mind thought a word and then ran through the alphabet working out all the possible rhymes. Even downloading a rhyming dictionary at 4am didn’t stop it. It was rather bad really and the next day I really didn’t function well.
I wrote on rather salacious villanelle but I’m not sure whether you my wonderful audience, many of whom are here more for my knitted animals (new post soon), are quiet ready for a 57 year old spouting soft ‘porn’ 😂😂😂 (and I love my spellchecker just autocorrected ‘porn’ to ‘poem’ 😂 - maybe I should just write soft poems!
Any hoo, I’d spent a good while writing then a bone for this newsletter so I had to write another villanelle for you. And as I felt like death warmed up, I wrote about the spectre that dogs me most days. Enjoy. 💀
I Dare to Tease Death - a villanelle Death grins rigidly, staring with eyes devoid of sight Laughs in my face, beckons me, I snarl back daringly. I goad him mercilessly to try, to test my resolve, to fight. Death arrives when the whim takes him, any time, day or night, I wait for his rude, annoying, daily intrusion calmly. Death grins rigidly, staring with eyes devoid of sight. So far, Death lurks furtively, more than giving fright He sulks at my continued resolve to live, waiting restlessly. I goad him mercilessly to try, to test my resolve, to fight. Death stares and his bones clank, he’s not at all polite. I dance and I sing, and constantly tease him relentlessly. Death grins rigidly, staring with eyes devoid of sight. Death knows he cannot win yet, that I have great might I am not ready to leave, I would go too reluctantly I goad him mercilessly to try, to test my resolve, to fight. Death will one day win, someday I will see the light. Until then he must yearn and long for me patiently. Death grins rigidly, staring with eyes devoid of sight I goad him mercilessly to try, to test my resolve, to fight.
Tell me what you think. I’d love to know and get some feedback.
Till next time, peeps.
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Oh wow. Would u look at that.
You did so well. I'm a little fuzzy from painkillers right now (oral surgery), so I might have to circle back with more detailed comments. I'm so impressed.