Form Poem Challenge: Villanelle

[Tzara]

Thanks, Tzara.

I am not an expert on Canute the Great. Fortunately perhaps few are. Apparently, there aren't many scholastic sources of information and much is considered myth passed down through oral traditions. At least that's what I read in a couple of websites. One such source speculated the name of Canute's daughter was Emma. Of course, it's the internet, so maybe my source was confusing daughter and wife, and I merely compounded the error. I claim poetic license if that's the case because I like the name.

My source was Wikipedia, not someone like Nicholas Purcell, the Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford, so it's not like I know anything about Cnut, really. If Emma was his wife at some point, Emma as a daughter's name would be reasonable, and in any case, as Richard Hugo has said (this is a paraphrase), you change the facts to fit the poem.

I struggled with line 17. I wanted to pack absurdity in it, thus hanging the king's hangman. Unfortunately, "hangman," coming just before a period to end the sentence sounds like a spondee IMO. I've edited the post, if that makes any difference.

I think I liked the original better, sorry to say. "Hangman" is stronger and clearer than "hanging man". I'm probably confusing you with my talk about accentual verse.

There was no intention of accentual verse. Of the two villanelles that seem to be most quoted, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Thomas and "One Art" by Bishop, I prefer the latter because she alternates feminine and masculine endings, which I think is more pleasing to the ear.

PS: "Bosham," I read, is pronounced "Bozzum," which is also more pleasing to the ear to me.

I was probably overreading your poem. I've been very interested in accentual (podic) verse recently, and this poem seemed to me to fit that mode of composition.

I will still say that most of the poem sounds accentual tetrameter to me.

But that's just me, perhaps.

Still an excellent poem.

 

[Desejo]

Act Two

To dream with you, but wake alone
What use this sweet shared torment
over the years an anguish grown

In hours of thought, mindless drone
And too few sinful acts to repent
I dream of you, but wake alone

My words nudge your comfort zone
Often I’m confused - what is meant
What use this sweet shared torment

Yet we still agree to postpone
A hard end by mutual consent
I dream with you, but wake alone

By now experience has well shown
The value of rules we simply invent
What use this sweet shared torment

Too few are the times we lie prone
And I bury myself in your scent
I dream with you but wake alone
What use this sweet shared torment

I don't know if I am doing this right. Still trying to get the hang of structure and meter so bear with me. Not sounding like Yoda is about as good as I can do right now....

 

[Remec]

P.S. Good lord that was painful to write and worse to read. This is going to take some practice....

*nod* (Not the reading part, mind you.)
I feel you. Main reason why I haven't replied yet...began working on something, got fairly far along, had to stop to deal with kids or something around the house, and have yet to really find the time or mindset to get back to it.

I find the main difficulty in finding a suitable couplet concept that bears repeating or could be manipulated in subtle ways to remain mostly the same when scanned by the visual eye.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Desejo, I really like the lyricism of your first line. Remec, good luck finding those repetends.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I have to admit it I'm stuck ....... I started out with the idea, I got the lines in place I've even got the first three stanzas but that's it

 

[PandoraGlitters]

No worries, UYS, you still have 2 weeks!

 

[HarryHill]

Well folks, the good news is that it's August now; time for a new form!

 

[BooMerengue]

Old but not rotten yet.

I wrote this one quite a while ago. Some may recognize it. I tried writing a new one and am not having much luck. But this is why I sometimes shop at Goodwill...


Come, take my hand and walk awhile with me!
I'll share the day with no one else in mind
our selfishness the gift we give for free.

You'll snuggle close as we walk towards the sea.
I'll cherish all the keepsakes that we find.
Come, take my hand and walk awhile with me.

Your shouted laugh imprints my memory
and racing fast the sunlight makes us blind!
Our selfishness the gift we give for free;

my joy in you explodes in raucous glee
when seagulls scream at us though not unkind!
Come, take my hand and walk awhile with me

as night descends we'll gather from the trees
the firelight that lets the day unwind,
our selfishness the gift we give for free.

The time we share is limited, you see.
We will not waste a glance at whats behind.
Come, take my hand and walk awhile with me
our selfishness the gift we give for free.