Villanelles

Arthur Rimbaud

I have been suffering from lack of poetic inspiration, of late. Or rather, inability to distil whatever inspiration exists into anything coherent and satisfactory.

So I have returned to an old teenage favourite, the villanelle, to provide some built-in structure (and even some built in lines, once you come up with the refrain).

I am worried that the extensive time I am putting into villanelles is churning out work which is too formulaic and prolix, and out of fashion. Another problem with the villanelle is that it is so easy to fall into sentimental whining, and can be difficult to capture and elaborate on satisfactory symbols and play with technique.

I am really enjoying the return to structure and lyricism that the villanelle provides, but do people (...readers, publishers, competition judges) take it seriously?

What are your opinions on villanelles? Do they tend to be too "telly", naive, sentimental? Are they a waste of time nowadays?

jazz101

Nonsense. People love "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" to this very day. The villanelle is fantastic but the refrains have to be really excellent or they can get a bit sluggish.

I love form. Honestly do not like poetry without form unless it is fantastic. Rondeaus, sestinas, villanelle, redoublés, sonnets, throw em at me. I love seeing what people can do with a structure that I too have access to.

Arthur Rimbaud

Here's an illustration to show you what I mean. I've tried to avoid falling into rueful sentimentality, but have come to the conclusion that it's almost impossible to avoid this pitfall with the villanelle. If it isn't rueful and bombastic, it just doesn't seem to work. Frankly, I think even Dylan Thomas's touchstone villanelle has this problem. I do really like the structure the villanelle requires, but I would appreciate any suggestions on how to make it more striking and alive.

Letter Home
A villanelle

Old Memory, go up your lonely lane
With ponies’ names that toll like broken toys
As old days droop in sheets of milky rain.

Boys’ books go back in cupboards whence they came,
your rugby stripes; a mathematics prize.
Old Memory, go up your lonely lane.

For brothers play their war games just the same;
Old rivals steeped in blood, for blood’s demise
As old days droop in sheets of milky rain.

A copper beech: a rusty weathervane,
Pikes a bear’s slow turning head, his bleeding eyes;
Old Memory, go up your lonely lane.

The Den is empty now; just stones remain.
The fairies sit and wait for lonesome boys
As old days droop in sheets of milky rain.

A boy arrives by donkey, goes by train,
Leans forward to his grave, falls in, and dies.
Old Memory, go up your lonely lane
As old days droop in sheets of milky rain.

jazz101

I think going back to the importance of really strong refrains, what makes your poem slightly pallid (though still thought-provoking) in comparison to the great villanelles is the style of refrain. Your use of the word "As" in your second refrain is an example of this. It's a rather wrenched style of conjunction, and a bit of an easy way out in terms of tying a refrain in to the form. Consider (and I agree with you on Thomas just a bit) how Do Not Go Gentle.. uses its refrains in a sort of enjambment in each verse. Thomas uses two refrains that can tie in perfectly with a verse and yet stand alone as great lines too.

Also consider mixing up your meter just a bit. It's a fairly straight iambic pentameter you've got going there. I know from experience it can be real difficult to feck around with the meter on a villanelle, and one definitely needs at least 10 beats to get sufficient words into the rather sparse form, but even throwing in a few unstressed endings or anapaests around while keeping the same general 10 beat line would do wonders for what at the minute scans as a rather mechanical poem.

Arthur Rimbaud

Sorry, I didn't get to reply properly because of the boards outage.

I agree with you on "as"; I didn't so much place it there as a conjunction (where, I agree it is entirely artificial and strained) but to create a satisfactory iambus. It isn't satisfactory to me as it is, but i figure i can mend this in further drafting.

Your suggestion of more experimental meter is interesting, and may be a good way of avoiding the fusty grandiloquence that can be associated with the villanelle.

But I guess this goes back to another question. As much as I like these technical challenges, I wonder whether many people really write villanelles these days? Are they a waste of time? I don't think I have ever seen a villanelle win an Irish poetry competition, and I can't remember the last one I've seen published… even if you 9and I) can enjoy them, I'm afraid they have this terrible 1960s-teenager image more generally.