The Villanelle (10/3/99-10/15/99)

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

Poetry Workshop

The Villanelle (10/3/99-10/15/99)

Nan

Administrator

Member Seraphic

since 1999-05-20

Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA

0 posted 1999-10-03 05:42 PM

Our first venture is The Villanelle - (and we can all thank poet deVine for this challenge). Actually, this is one of my favorite formats.

*adorning my Villanelle hat*

Teaching may be "old hat" to me, but online teaching is not. If anyone is unclear about anything - Please, please, please - let me know - It's pretty hard to raise your hand or speak out in class here.....

There are three very important elements to consider when composing your poem - (a) Theme Development, (b) Rhyme Scheme and (c) Meter. All are very important to the successful completion of your work.

Your Theme is extremely important to spend time thinking about and planning. It needs to be one that you can develop in nineteen lines, eight of which are repeated throughout the poem. This, of course, means that you must also construct your lines in a way that is general enough to allow you to effectively develop the theme in spite of the repetitions. So - think carefully about your intention for the context of your poem.

Most of you know how to determine a poetic rhyme scheme, but we'll do a quick synopsis as a reminder. Simply assign each successive rhyming line's end word with the same letter (in alphabetical order) throughout the poem.

For example - Look at Balladeer's recent posting "Her Song".

"She didn't sing it just for me.
I knew that from the start
But when I heard the melody,
It poured into my heart.

A voice whose passion filled the sky,
Smooth notes held loud and long
Yet gentle as a mother's sigh
That's how she sang her song...."

You can clearly discern a specific rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b/c-d-c-d....etc. throughout the poem.

Balladeer's poems are also excellent examples of poetic meter, as he is very consistent about maintaining it throughout his poetry. Poetic Meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables within each line of verse. Balladeer's poem is written in flawlessly alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter.

Read the words
"She-DID/n't-SING/it-JUST/for-ME"
followed by
"i-KNEW/that-FROM/the-START"

(-/-/-/-/followed by -/-/-/)

Read these lines a few times, and you'll feel the rhythm of the iambic (unstressed-STRESSED) pattern in each line.

Repeating this pattern
Four times (four feet) = tetrameter and
Three times (three feet) = trimeter

For a more indepth overview of these patterns, consult Brad's tutorial in Syllable Counting, Sue's thread in the Alley.

If either element, rhyme scheme or meter, is not intact, a poem can seem to be "forced" to rhyme. Conversely, with both properly intune, your work will hum like a symphony.

Let's all start with a simple quatrain, that's four lines of verse, written with a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-a - This will eventually evolve into your Villanelle - So consider your theme carefully, and plan upon the third and fourth lines being repeated throughout your final poem. The last lines of this quatrain will later become the first lines of the poem as well - so make it a good one (one that states your theme). The quatrain itself will finally become your closing stanza for your villanelle.

We'll worry about the meter as we go along - That part is fairly easy to smooth out by nipping and tucking syllables. Do try to be consistent about the number of syllables that you use in each line, however. That will make it easier edit, and to give your poem a specified meter.

Ergo - Assignment #1 - Each of you should post a quatrain independently (your own thread) in this forum, hopefully within 48 hours - Then we'll go over each of them. We'll edit for proper rhyme scheme and meter, and then we'll set them up into the format of a Villanelle.......

You'll be authorized to make your post very soon (I hope

)....
If you need assistance, please feel free to contact me on ICQ or through email.

More later...

Let the writing begin.....

[This message has been edited by Nan (edited 10-04-1999).]

Nan

Administrator

Member Seraphic

since 1999-05-20

Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA

1 posted 1999-10-17 09:16 AM

With this session complete, I'm locking all of the threads related to it - They can still be read, but we don't want them jumping into the new session..... That'd be a nightmare!!

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.