Wow - thank you. I'm delighted and slightly astonished.
Give me a couple of days and I'll start a new one.
M
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Wow - thank you. I'm delighted and slightly astonished.
Give me a couple of days and I'll start a new one.
M
Congratulations Mark!
Congratulations Mark!
One of my oft-expounded beliefs about art is that form matters. The restrictions of form inspire invention.
There was a time when a painter would be commissioned to paint, say, an altarpiece. And there are rules for that. It's got to have a religious subject; it has to be a very specific size and shape; it has to be viewable, even from the cheap seats at the back. And the great artists could fulfil all that and still make something that satisfied their own creative impulse, something that kept the client happy but also said what the artist wanted to say. That's not selling your soul - that's working brilliantly.
My contention is that it's the tension between specification and inspiration that makes art.
So, the game...
A villanelle is a really tight, restrictive format, in terms of metre, structure and length.
Nineteen lines, two rhymes, a regular metre (which must be consistent, whatever it is). There are two repeated lines, which always occur in the same places.
Wikipedia describes the structure like this:
The essence of the fixed modern form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as
A1 b A2 (stanza 1, three lines)
a b A1 (stanza 2, three lines)
a b A2 (stanza 3, three lines)
a b A1 (stanza 4, three lines)
a b A2 (stanza 5, three lines)
a b A1 A2 (stanza 4, four lines)
where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (1 and 2) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.
...Which sounds complicated, but it's more easily understood when you see it.
Here's a famous one.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Another one - same structure, same form.
Discovering my orbit in your eyes,
I’ll focus there and dare it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
Though once a spectacle in my disguise,
I’m naked now, I swear it,
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
Eclipsed, revealed, freed and circumscribed,
I’ll steal your light and share it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
The Old World in a new circumference lies.
By some rare cusp, I merit
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
Struck blind by what I feared to visualise,
I’ll name it. I’ll declare it
My love. I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
I’ve blinked at fear before, in other lives,
But this time I’ll out-stare it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise,
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
So, two lines repeated exactly, though possibly punctuated differently, and only two rhymes, and a tight metre.
A challenge, yes. If no one likes it, we'll do a limerick. (Though they're a lot more difficult than they look, too.)
Let's give the best part of a month for this. Deadline: March 31st
Patience
Stay steady through the falling rain
As stormy weather haunts the spring.
Calm patience doesn't pass on pain.
Those failures that disturb the brain
Will spoil results no one can bring.
Stay steady through the falling rain.
Harsh words will make the spirit drain
With scorn that wants to stick and sting.
Calm patience doesn't pass on pain.
Decaying dreams will ever stain
And stop the voice that longs to sing.
Stay steady through the falling rain.
When screams erupt the ears will strain
For peace but hear a heartless ring.
Calm patience doesn't pass on pain.
So should the day drench hope of gain
And you are blamed for everything,
Stay steady through the falling rain.
Calm patience doesn't pass on pain.
He left his things behind
and headed out the door,
starting fresh and blind.
She didn't seem to mind,
she'd seen his kind before;
he left his things behind.
Their time was undefined,
nothing less and nothing more,
starting fresh and blind.
Their time was intertwined
as waves approached the shore;
he left his things behind.
The note was left unsigned
and fell upon the floor;
starting fresh and blind.
Time is never kind
revealing what's in store.
He left his things behind,
starting fresh and blind.
POE
The waves wash upon some forgotten shore,
The wind sighs softly among the gnarled trees.
Somewhere a dark bird croaks “Nevermore,”
From his perch upon a bust of Pallas above the chamber door.
The dark clouds split and the heavens bleed.
The waves wash upon some forgotten shore,
As a wild-eyed man searches for his lost Lenore,
Calling out; desperately expressing his needs!
Somewhere a dark bird croaks “Nevermore,”
In tones of Doom as the man implores
The Unforgiving Heavens to return his dreams.
The waves wash upon some forgotten shore,
The beach where she’d played in the days of yore—
He turns to the bottle, trying to drown his needs.
Somewhere a dark bird croaks “Nevermore,”
And the echoes echo the name “Lenore…”
He traces her name on the tombstone as he reads.
The waves wash upon some forgotten shore,
And somewhere a dark bird croaks “Nevermore.”
Pendragon
Um, judge, please
Don't we have until the 31st March ?
Yeah - a few days yet.
Would be nice to see more entries. This form is interesting.
Indeed it is! But no one has posted for some time. I fear that people do not participate in our many contests. Sad, really, because we have so many fine poets!Quote:
Originally Posted by jajdude
Alas, the beating heart has caught aflame;
The world is shaking with its strangled cries
And suffocated is the Beast in shame.
Like lions running wild and free, untamed,
To own this Creature is the greatest prize.
Alas, the beating heart has caught aflame.
The children temp its teeth with wicked games,
Their fragile forms like dancers in its eyes,
And suffocated is the Beast in shame.
The hunger claws its face, always the same
With prinpricks clogging up the empty skies;
Alas, the beating heart has caught aflame.
It looks around and sees no one to blame
As murdered suns like blood stains start to rise,
And suffocated is the Beast in shame.
It's bleeding from a vileness with no name
As all around, each raindrop falls and dies;
Alas, the beating heart has caught aflame
And suffocated is the Beast in shame.
Thank you, entrants.
The poems were all disciplined, structurally and, on the whole, metrically. And there was an interesting range of subject matter - some of which hooked me and some of which didn't.
What won it was the natural rhythms and structures of jajdude's language. It was an unusual metre for a villanelle (there are conventions on that, but no 'rule'), which supported the short line. And there was a sort of limpid simplicity to the theme too, which made that entry stand out.
I', surprised but thanks Mark. OK, for some reason, god knows why, I have to keep the entertainment on the sea here. I am a lazy man so I'm not up to looking up forms, they have rules and stuff and those hurt my head.
What I will suggest is a "fading poem". No doubt this form already exists somewhere out there in form universe, so who cares.
First line has, I dunno, let's say seven or more words, and each subsequent line removes a word from the previous one until at last we have one word, so make it good. I will judge harshly since that is fun, right?
Example I have to make up now:
The dog is eating the beans on the shelf.
On the shelf the dog is eating beans.
The dog is eating on the shelf.
On the shelf is the dog.
The dog is the shelf.
The shelf is dog.
Dog is shelf.
Shelf is.
Shelf.
Damn, this looks hard, but good luck and have fun you 4 or 5 people who take part in this.