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Death Drums (Villanelle repost)
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Death Drums (Villanelle repost) |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
DE: Note the changes to the repeated lines, helps the flow a little bit (and I was told it was ok to do that): Death drums in your head, echoing in the fertile valley like thundering hearts of the dead. Gray ash drifting like a ghostly thread, entombs silence in the windless air muting death drums in your head. Cries of agony, screams of dread; chanting out a death knell air, to thundering hearts of the dead. Nazi lies told, with hands outspread; plead in sobs for a judgment fair, wail like death drums in your head. Prosecutors plead for those who bled; seeking peaceful vindication for, the thundering hearts of the dead. Unrepentant murderers stare, as God imparts the verdict there. Justice sings, like death drums in your head. Rejoice, thundering hearts of the dead! |
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DreamEvil Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 2396 |
I see what you mean Lady deVine. I had thought strict adherence to form was best for learning this form. I'll give it a try. ------------------ Shall I indulge in flights of fancy hampered by clipped wings? DreamEvil© |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
You're too rigid! The 'rule' here makes the poem sound like nothing more than a series of phrases put together in a groups. The lines still have to flow to make sense! |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
VILLANELLE A poem in a fixed form, consisting of five three-line stanzas followed by a quatrain and having only two rhymes. In the stanzas following the first, the first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately as refrains. They are the final two lines of the concluding quatrain. The object of the villanelle is to create a flow by following the rules, not bending them. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
This is another great effort (geeze, if this is what people are doing here, I'm going to have write one of these things two). I have two points I want to make but please understand that I like this poem and in no way mean to be negative: 1. I wonder if it might be better by making the lines a little longer. Your style here borders on the comic; I don't know if that fits very well with the dark theme. I suppose you were trying for a stark feel but I don't think that quite works. 2. Again, I'm not sure you can do this in the form your working with but I'd rather see it more specific -- concentrate on a specific Nazi or victim (just a thought: a lot of people forget that they killed gypsies as well as Jews) and expand the theme from there. Thank you very much, Brad |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
Balladeer: Thank you for your admonishment! This is why I don't do formula poetry! I can't follow anyone's rule! Brad: Thank you for your comments also... I know that the Nazi's killed more than just Jews (gypsies, homosexuals to name two other groups) As this was my first and last attempt at a Villanelle, I will quietly take my leave...  |
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DreamEvil Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 2396 |
I believe I was told that slightly altering the last line was acceptable. I'll edit this message when I remember where. ------------------ Shall I indulge in flights of fancy hampered by clipped wings? DreamEvil© |
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JSage Member
since 2000-08-25
Posts 91Nashua, NH USA |
I think the poem is great! I never read the original, but I'm sure it was just as great. I'm not a stickler for form or flow. I let the poem lead me... sometimes the pen writes a good one, other times my brain should've stepped in for some literary critique, but either way honest works are born/formed. I look forward to reading more of your work. -Jes |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
I never did understand the purpose in writing a villanelle anyway. So, I never tried to write one. I agree that your slight alteration of the repeated lines makes the poem sound and flow better. But, I think I have to agree with Mike and Brad that the form is pretty strictly defined and one probably should adhere strictly to that form in order to call it a villanelle. Also, Brad seems to have a valid point, the short lines tend to detract from the seriousness of the subject matter. I won't go so far as to say comic though. This is not one of your best, but the form you have chosen, IMHO, precludes writing to your potential anyway  Pete [This message has been edited by Not A Poet (edited 08-29-2000).] |
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Tim Gouldthorp Member
since 2000-01-03
Posts 170 |
Poet deVine, It is my understanding that a villanelle requires only two rythmes, meaning that all the middle lines from each 3 line stanza must rhyme. By departing from this, the overall flow of that is parculiar to the villanelle form is weakened, particularly in the last stanza. I don't think it is the good idea to write 'largely' villanelle form. I would also prefer very regular metre for a villanelle, instead of varying metre and number of syllables. Longer lines, as Brad suggested, may help this also. Villanelle is a very difficult form to write in, and I think short lines make it even more difficult. -Tim |
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Poertree Senior Member
since 1999-11-05
Posts 1359UK |
Hey Sharon ..what doeth thou here!! Well I thought this was an interesting shot at a difficult form. Unlike Mr Deer and maybe others I don't have a big problem with bending or even breaking rules (the villanelle is usually iambic i think as well). Certainly by tradiitional standards you picked the right form - the villanelle is the appropriate medium for writing about the BIG question, and often the more serious and gloomy ones! You picked well. And Pete ...shame on you ... quote: I thought you liked a challenge! Double sestina springs to mind...no? I recently had cause to sing the praises of this form in the English Forum; as follows: Another reason the villanelle is interesting is because of the way in which the writer is consistently forced back within the confines of the original propositions by the repeating lines. There are other forms which do this to some extent (the triolet is one is it not Pete?), but not quite to the same extent and in a manner which works towards a finale consisting entirely and exclusively of the repeats and therefore by extension the central message. I've dug out a piece which I read a while back which discusses the device of repetition as utilised in the villanelle and argues, in part at least, that expertly handled in this form textual repetition becomes in fact a kind of repatriation ie not in fact opening up and expanding an argument as most repetitive expositions might do, but closing it down and narrowing it until the critical central meaning is captured and imprisoned in the final couplet. (This is a bit heavy going btw ... you are warned ...lol): "Read from a poststructuralist perspective, the villanelle is the perfect means of the preservation and reproduction of a dominant discourse: a product that fails to expand as it repeats, exuviating and excluding other "meanings" or interpretations as it methodically progresses toward monologue. Using the reoccurrence of the first and third lines of its first stanza throughout the rest of its body not to invite dialogue but to both emphasize and narrow the poem's focus (even if the narrative seems to expand), the villanelle moves through gradual constricting contextual changes toward a dialectical (not-dialogic) conclusion. The repeated lines in each stanza contextually "mean" something different, yet they function identically, seeking ultimately to join together in the culminating couplet, gracing the last stanza with the true centered "meaning. The extent, however, to which the traditional French villanelle lingers near the double of a dialogic text through its use of extensive dialectical repetition implies much more than simple readerly discourse. Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," for example can be (re)written as a function of its genius text performance and end-oriented treatment of the imperative monologic repetitions of dialectical discourse. As a writer-privileged text, Thomas's villanelle absorbs activity and translates it into the persona of writer (or even the author, in this case). The seeming divergence of voice consummated in the dialectical ending of the poem, sutures the passive reader into a closed system, leaving him/her to remain passive like the dying father Thomas implores to listen but does not empower to respond. Thomas's master-piece is revealed a master text: a work of repatriation not repetition. Lines or words repeat not to include or expand but to withhold and occlude. Any change of the lines, therefore, is not one of perspective, but one of controlled (writer-privileged) context. The writer chooses to repeat certain lines and give them a meaning which the reader gradually comes to understand/accept: the model of the preeminent readerly poem. The focus of conventional interpretations of villanelle's in the twentieth century however has shifted to envelope and repackage the problematic of traditional form and the reproduction of dominant discourse. Primarily, this criticism centers upon the writer's attempt to escape from the constrictions of form while suffering within its grasp. That is, through focus upon the writer's self-conscious appropriation of a highly constrictive writing environment, many have suggested that a dominant discourse can be subverted. The villanelle's form becomes a center which the writer struggles to escape. Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," for instance, has often been historicized as the break between the dominance of the form and the control of the writer. This construction, however, is clearly writer-privileged. It assumes a creator of text performing as eclipsing context, existing with the poem as product: (an author). Even Bishop, who quite effectively reflects upon the fabrication of the form she has chosen for " One Art," nevertheless, concedes to both the hierarchical discourse of traditional structure and the exclusionary privileging of the writer. As "One Art" ends, for example, it becomes clear that the reader's "voice" in the poem has been orchestrated from the first line, culminating in the exclamation "(Write it!)"--words forced into a passive reader's mouth. "One Art" is neither cathartic nor subversive; it is the device of a writer manipulating the reader into readerly monologic lip-synching--poetic karaoke." so there ya go Pete, put that in your pipe and smoke it.... heh....... and for good measure here's One Art: Elizabeth Bishop 1911 - 1979 One Art The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. ..... and to those who don't believe in even "bending" the rules ..check out the variations in the refrains ....... so if the greats can do it ..so can Sharon and me (or should that be I )..... so there!!!philip [This message has been edited by Poertree (edited 08-31-2000).] |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
HUH!!! Never express yourself more clearly than you can think - Niels Bohr |
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Poertree Senior Member
since 1999-11-05
Posts 1359UK |
LOL!!! Confuse the hell outta 'em and they won't dare ask you what you mean - Philip M |
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