Valentine's Villanelle Challenge

[Piscator]

20 poems so far and 10 authors (some have multiple submissions). Authors are arranged alphabetically.

Always Hungry
greenmountaineer
Guilty Pleasure
HarryHill
legerdemer
Magnetron
Piscator
Remec
Sinseria
UnderYourSpell

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Wow, that means that "On the Frigid Night" is not Honey Adored. Who could it be?

And normally I can spot GM's distinctive story-telling style. This time, I got nothin'.

 

[Sinseria]

Wow, that means that "On the Frigid Night" is not Honey Adored. Who could it be?

And normally I can spot GM's distinctive story-telling style. This time, I got nothin'.

Heh gotta be guilty pleasures or uys

 

[HoneyAdored]

......

 

[Lyricalli]

Number three : Lyricalli

I'm not used to my name showing up in guesses, so this was fun to come across. Alas, as you can see from the list of participants, I've yet to add to the mix. I'm just now catching up on the thread. Hoping I can play, too, before the deadline.

 

[Magnetron]

I'm not used to my name showing up in guesses, so this was fun to come across. Alas, as you can see from the list of participants, I've yet to add to the mix. I'm just now catching up on the thread. Hoping I can play, too, before the deadline.

I'm just plain awful at guessing who wrote what. Todski and butters have some trademark quirks, but beyond that I'm lost.

 

[Lyricalli]

I'm just plain awful at guessing who wrote what. Todski and butters have some trademark quirks, but beyond that I'm lost.

I'm not very good at it either, so I haven't really tried yet. Todski's the only one I can consistently guess correctly. Guess I have to try to pay more attention.

 

[Magnetron]

#20 Nota: Chance


HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY!!!!!!!!

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m100h8Qx2u1qa9vqgo1_250.gif

 

[butters]

:d:d:d

 

[HarryHill]

#20 Nota: Chance


HARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY!!!!!!!!

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m100h8Qx2u1qa9vqgo1_250.gif

Hah! guilty no one writes nota's but me, easy catch

 

[Piscator]

The list of contributors is growing but to protect the guilty, I'll wait a while before updating the list.

 

[Angeline]

#25 is a WOW poem for me. I'm pretty sure I know who wrote it, too, but I am ticking a lock.

 

[HarryHill]

#25 is a WOW poem for me. I'm pretty sure I know who wrote it, too, but I am ticking a lock.

..
gm?

 

[Angeline]

..
gm?

I ticked a lock!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Heh gotta be guilty pleasures or uys

Not me!

 

[Trixareforkids]

Y'all are making me just a wee bit jealous with your ready ability to write form. Alas my attempts are floundering Oh, well...

Y'all are doing a great job and hey, could whomever wrote #17 drop me a PM and let me know if it's ok to voice it

 

[greenmountaineer]

I just got around to reading all the poems thus far. #17 I think is remarkable. The problem I have with much formal poetry is how meter and/or rhyme sometimes feels forced. Neither was the case here; they both flowed almost effortlessly, and building the poem around the familiar image of a valentine heart was ingenious.

I don't care for antiquated language unless there's a larger context for it, so "doth" didn't work for me, and I agree with Mer with "no" instead of "not" before "symmetry."

Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable read for me. My guess too would be AH.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

I agree it's fabulous, except for a minor quibble...I am getting tripped up on the "not" in the stanza below - probably because of the way I pronounce "real" - in my case, I pronounce it nearly as two syllables. If I pronounce it as one - like reel - the line flows much more smoothly.

A real heart knows not symmetry,
But true hearts always do, defined
By contours that I long to see.

I was toying with the following modification, though it doesn't quite mean the same thing, and still benefits from the "reel" pronunciation.

A real heart knows no symmetry,
But true hearts always do, defined
By contours that I long to see.


And now that I've gotten all that babbling out, I think this one really has AH's fingerprints all over it. And since he demands perfection, I get to air my (dirty) quibbles in public. LOL

I'll fess up, now that I have been fingered, figuratively of course, by both Mer and GM. Ironically, the proposed modification that Mer suggests was the first version I sent to Piscador. I then revised it, for two reasons: first, because I felt uncomfortable with the grammar. "A real heart knows no symmetry, But true hearts always do" could be taken to mean that true hearts also know no symmetry. Nit-picky, I know. But I also found that I liked the consonant echo from "heart" to "not". YMMV.

I found the villanelle tough to work with because of the repeated lines -- I think that they could easily be annoying. I read a description somewhere, when I was googling to find out what the hell a villanelle was, that said this form is ideal for themes of obsession.

 

[Trixareforkids]

I'll fess up, now that I have been fingered, figuratively of course, by both Mer and GM.

And since you've fessed up I've put your moniker in the description

A Villanelle Valentine

 

[AlwaysHungry]

And since you've fessed up I've put your moniker in the description

A Villanelle Valentine

Nice! The only suggestion I would make is that when a sentence crosses into a second line, keep the tension of the idea by not inserting a big pause. For example:

The crimson sweep so ardently
In her enchanting hand is signed;

After "ardently" the idea still needs to be completed. I would move on with maybe just a hint of a hesitation, or none at all. YMMV.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Nice! The only suggestion I would make is that when a sentence crosses into a second line, keep the tension of the idea by not inserting a big pause. For example:

The crimson sweep so ardently
In her enchanting hand is signed;

After "ardently" the idea still needs to be completed. I would move on with maybe just a hint of a hesitation, or none at all. YMMV.

LOL, and that's why I usually send it via PM for preview before posting.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

But I think that this is something that would be useful to discuss in a general way. When reading a poem aloud, do you stop at the end of each line, if the line ends in mid-sentence? If so, how long?

 

[legerdemer]

But I think that this is something that would be useful to discuss in a general way. When reading a poem aloud, do you stop at the end of each line, if the line ends in mid-sentence? If so, how long?

I try hard not to stop at all, unless it is the end of the phrase or sentence or idea, as you said. Occasionally I run out of breath, especially when I have a cold - LOL. If it bothers me because the break is too defined where it shouldn't be, I re-record. Sometimes I get lazy...

Where the pauses get inserted, along with inflections, is perhaps where most of the interpretation comes in reading.

I also find that I may not have the right voice or inflection for some poems: I doubt, for example, that I could do anywhere as good a job as Trix did with Enter Your Submission, though I'd like to try it as an experiment. I wonder if others feel the same way - that their voices are best matched to some poems and not others.

 

[Trixareforkids]

I wonder if others feel the same way - that their voices are best matched to some poems and not others.

Definitely. There are pieces that I can't read. Oh, I could read them but the read would not do justice to the piece. When I read a piece, I read it like I hear it in my head regardless of line breaks. I'll break in the middle of a line if that's how the piece speaks to me. The length of a pause depends on the type of pause, a pause for breath is generally shorter than a pause for effect. I usually pause between stanzas, but not always. Again, it all depends on the character and feel of the piece.

What it comes down to for me, my aim when reading a piece aloud, is to truly give voice to the piece, as I understand it, not just the words, but the feeling the piece evokes, or the scene/character(s) the piece portrays.

 

[Angeline]

When I read a poem, aloud or to myself, I follow the sentences. I think this is why poets enjamb lines (i.e., the sentence extends past a line ending): they want us to read with little or no pause past the line's end. And I like to punctuate my poems because punctuation serves as a guidepost for a reader. If I don't punctuate, that's a conscious choice as well. Also if a line ends with a noun or verb, I'd be more likely to emphasize the word and pause slightly than if it ends on another part of speech. Beyond that, it's a matter of interpretation. To me, that's a good thing. In the poem for Tzara's challenge (that four of us read), each interpretation was slightly different from the rest--partly, I guess, because the poem wasn't punctuated. I enjoyed that diversity because it allowed me to consider variations in meaning. Each reader brings their own set of experiences to what they read and that affects the way they understand it.

In my corporate life, I worked with committees of writing specialists from colleges and universities across the USA. We were devising criteria for interpreting the quality of different types of student writing at different grade levels. One thing most participants agreed on is that one of the qualities of better writing is that it's open to a variety of interpretations. This makes sense to me because the context in which we read is an individual thing. How could it be otherwise? We're all individuals.

I definitely agree that there are some poems I would rather not read because my voice isn't suited for them. For one thing I have a benign lung disease (sarcoidosis) that makes it hard for me to read long pieces aloud. It's also the reason I sound kind of breathy when I read. Even some short poems aren't suited to that imho.

Interesting conversation. I've enjoyed reading your opinions.