Poetry exercise: writing a villanelle

2

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  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Fancy trying a villanelle?
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    burtschips wrote:
    This is hard, quite tortuous, probably reads so..... I undertsand why many smoked opium. It's not complete, so a demi-villanelle. It's about waves.


    Waves

    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore
    Recalled by natures rhythmic meter of time
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law

    Such smoothly silent bodies seem demure
    For in fright and grievance lies the unheard chime
    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore

    Felt as an echoe from within its deepest core
    A message of promise with untold crime
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law

    In such fears the truth is born
    from a silent knowledge that is mine
    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore



    I'm going to try the last two stanzas later.


    It is tough. It's probably easier to write line-by-line poetry as a villanelle but if you're thinking about maintaining some kind of syntagmatic order, as you'd find in syntactical prose, the repetition of lines jars the communicative act.

    Keep going!
  • burtschips
    burtschips Posts: 734
    Waves

    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore
    Recalled by natures rhythmic meter of time
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law

    Such smoothly silent bodies seem demure
    For in fright and grievance lies the unheard chime
    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore

    Felt as an echoe from within its deepest core
    A message of promise with untold crime
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law

    In such fears the truth is born
    From a silent knowledge that is divine
    A wave courts the sparkling shimmering shore

    The rolling swell idling surely from moor to moor
    Is fixed eternally to its mothers shine
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law

    Rippled brothers pulsing over ocean floor
    Reading fathoms shudders formed trace in mime
    Whos angered crest and boiling surf leaves one thing sure
    As a lunar tremor memorised in tidal law.



    Got more enjoyable in the end, might try one once a month. I could imagine spending a long time on one trying to get it to feel right.
    Salut baloo
  • olderman
    olderman Posts: 1,765
    OK Fins, here I go!! (stole a line from Wordsworth... Please forgive me)

    The Child is the Father to the Man,
    The Father envies his long lost youth,
    As the Children play as Peter Pan.

    Worn out footsteps covered by the sand,
    Tries to forget his wrongs and yet the truth,
    The Child is the Father to the Man.

    The Father works out his financial plan,
    While Mother strives to retain her youth,
    As the Children play as Peter Pan.

    Wicked Brother does all that he can
    To rob his Father's fortune nail and tooth,
    The Child is the Father to the Man.

    I'm through with tears and I have my plan,
    For the greed I've seen has not been smooth,
    As the Children play as Peter Pan.

    I will find sunlight and burn to a tan,
    And peace will abide with me forsooth,
    The Child is the Father to the Man,
    As the Children play as Peter Pan.

    ____

    much of this was written to get through the excersise so don't try to find too much depth.. but thanks for reading :)
    Down the street you can hear her scream youre a disgrace
    As she slams the door in his drunken face
    And now he stands outside
    And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
    He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
    What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
    Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
    And his tears fall and burn the garden green
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Well, these exercises aim to help you get so confident with the form that you can say what you say without being constricted, but show technical skill as well as depth of feeling and content into the bargain. Thanks for doing the exercise, Olderman.
  • burtschips
    burtschips Posts: 734
    ah ballsacks, just realised reading Oldermans that I got the last stanza wrong (lat two line repeat bit), easy to correct though. I've got to pay more attention.
    Salut baloo
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Yes, you need to repeat the repeated lines as a final couplet. But the process of learning is fun! And, as you say, it's easy to correct what you wrote.
  • ruby
    ruby Posts: 103
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Fancy trying a villanelle?

    Finsbury, you make it sound like a little cake :).
    I've really enjoyed reading everyone's villanelles. Gonna try one too :).
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Okay! I've written a few but this thread's all about everyone, so if I post them it'll be later. :)
  • Kwyjibo
    Kwyjibo Posts: 662
    I have to do one of these by next week, so I'm bumping this thread so I can find it later.
    The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.

    I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Here's one I wrote but posted on another thread. I'll put it here to keep the momentum of this thread.

    The ocean, moonbright, a mirror, clear,
    Nightpulsing, offers up the Lake of Dreams
    reflected on black currents. I draw near

    toward the midnight breakers, and I hear
    strange echoes where the dreampool moon begleams
    The ocean, moonbright, a mirror, clear.

    Strange echoes sound: Cliffstranded cries of fear
    from nightlost cattle storm the void with screams
    reflected on black currents. I draw near

    To where the knifing surf strikes up to tear
    the stranded bog bare from its fielded seams.
    The ocean, moonbright, a mirror, clear

    rests as a chance of sleep to end this drear
    of fraught seawanderings: Thoughtbroken streams,
    relected on black currents. I draw near

    Toward the mirror moon, to disappear
    Beneath the shifting pulse of dreamspun beams
    reflected on black currents. I draw near
    The ocean, moonbright, a mirror, clear.
  • Kwyjibo
    Kwyjibo Posts: 662
    obviously I'm planning on reworking it, but this is what I came up with over the last hour, and I really like where its going.


    I'm shaking off the shakes again
    with a Black hair from a Velvet dog.
    Swimming with the combination spins.

    A Crystal haze over a Palace river of gin,
    covered with the pine trees--lost in fog.
    I'm ignoring these relentless shakes again.

    The fifth day straight with Russian kings.
    True potato-flavored for this Irish slob.
    Drowning in the combination spins.

    Southern jail with worms if I win.
    Slurping agave azul from a trough.
    I'm fighting off the demon shakes again.

    The desperate Captain orders the plank in
    spite of the witless captive's sobs.
    The circling fins, and their barrel-bound spins.

    My halved eyes are doomed to this sting.
    The door in my nose was my very last shot.
    So now I'm giving in to the shakes again.
    I'm giving in to contemplation's spins.
    The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.

    I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Yes, fine so far. If the exercise is to produce a precise villanelle, you'll have to make sure the entire line is repeated and not just the line ending; but I really like it so far.
  • ISN
    ISN Posts: 1,700
    you and your cakes....hehehehe
    ....they're asking me to prove why I should be allowed to stay with my baby in Australia, because I'm mentally ill......and they think I should leave......
  • Kwyjibo
    Kwyjibo Posts: 662
    na, the assignment wasn't to make an exact villanelle, and only one of the examples he showed us was a precise one.

    I might in my revision change it.

    Doesn't a precise villanelle need 10 syllables per line, and be in iambic pentameter?
    The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.

    I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    No, a villanelle can, for example, be tetrametric also.

    See here.
  • Kwyjibo
    Kwyjibo Posts: 662
    this is a pretty good villanelle by Richard Hugo:

    The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field

    The dim boy claps because the others clap.
    The polite word, handicapped, is muttered in the stands.
    Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back.

    One whole day I sit, contrite, dirt, L.A.
    Union Station, '46, sweating through last night.
    The dim boy claps because the others clap.

    Score, 5 to 3. Pitcher fading badly in the heat.
    Isn't it wrong to be or not be spastic?
    Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back.

    I'm laughing at a neighbor girl beaten to scream
    by a savage father and I'm ashamed to look.
    The dim boy claps because the others clap.

    The score is always close, the rally always short.
    I've left more wreckage than a quake.
    Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back.

    The afflicted never cheer in unison.
    Isn't it wrong, the way the mind moves back
    to stammering pastures where the picnic should have worked.
    The dim boy claps because the others clap.
    The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.

    I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
  • burtschips
    burtschips Posts: 734
    The Dune

    As grains of sand form dunes,
    blown from shore to shore,
    a bone dry smoothness blooms.

    Still trails dance over crescent moons
    to a sun beat silent score.
    As grains of sand form dunes

    The wind sculpts to a whistled tune,
    above whispered exchanges of folklore.
    A bone dry smoothness blooms.

    But, should wind leave too soon,
    the dune will lie unsure.
    As grains of sand form dunes.

    In time, the journey will resume.
    A sea is seen once more!
    A bone dry smoothness blooms.

    Wonder. To cross as a seabird's plume
    or to return to its first shore?
    A bone dry smoothness blooms,
    as grains of sand form dunes.


    To hell with the villanelle, for a while at least.
    Salut baloo
  • olderman
    olderman Posts: 1,765
    burtschips wrote:
    The Dune

    As grains of sand form dunes,
    blown from shore to shore,
    a bone dry smoothness blooms.

    Still trails dance over crescent moons
    to a sun beat silent score.
    As grains of sand form dunes

    The wind sculpts to a whistled tune,
    above whispered exchanges of folklore.
    A bone dry smoothness blooms.

    But, should wind leave too soon,
    the dune will lie unsure.
    As grains of sand form dunes.

    In time, the journey will resume.
    A sea is seen once more!
    A bone dry smoothness blooms.

    Wonder. To cross as a seabird's plume
    or to return to its first shore?
    A bone dry smoothness blooms,
    as grains of sand form dunes.


    To hell with the villanelle, for a while at least.

    I will be the first to post that this is an excellent poem!! :)
    Down the street you can hear her scream youre a disgrace
    As she slams the door in his drunken face
    And now he stands outside
    And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
    He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
    What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
    Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
    And his tears fall and burn the garden green
  • burtschips
    burtschips Posts: 734
    Well thanks Olderman!
    Salut baloo

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