Villanelle PUBLICATION

Hello everyone!

I don’t know why it is…but I tend to “purposefully forget” to share publications to my amazing readers & followers, to my friends and family. I think it’s because I write for me and for the basic joy of language. I publish and submit to publication so that others may share in this joy with me.

I’ve two new villanelles published in the Winter 2019 Edition (Volume 13 Issue 2) of Mezzo Cammin: An Online Journal of Formalist Poetry by Women. I’ve been blessed to have been published in this journal before as well in 2011, also with two villanelles. *You can find those HERE!

After I share a snippet of my poem(s) here and post the link, I want to give just a brief introduction to the villanelle! So….please check out the rest of this post!

Excerpt from my villanelle: “Therapy”

Therapy 

Why did you come and talk with me today?
I loved a girl; she left and broke my heart.
Well, for a price, I’ll take your cares away!

I do hope that you can afford to pay…
Exactly when will the therapy start?
Why did you come and talk with me today?

Was it some broken heart? What did you say?
I feel as if my soul’s been ripped apart.
Well, for a price, I’ll take your cares away!

Perhaps you need a scrip: “Take twice a day”.
No, no…I’m just another broken heart.
Then why’d you come and talk with me today?

•••••••••••••For more, please follow the following link: Brittany Hill TWO Villanelles Mezzo Cammin Here you will find what happens at the end of this therapy session AND my other published villanelle “Grandma’s Relationship Advice to Me on My 16th Birthday”••••••••••••••

The Villanelle

First of all–NO! I’m not referencing the main character/killer/amazing actress from Killing Eve! But…the form is just as intriguing.

Much like the sonnet, the villanelle is a poem in ‘form’ and written in iambic pentameter--five foot lines of stressed/unstressed syllables. Although, a villanelle usually has 19 lines. It also contains five stanzas of three lines, or tercets, followed by a single stanza of four lines, or a quatrain.

Now, the trickier part… There are two repeating lines and two repeating refrains. If I were to write out all these instructions, it would be even more convoluted and confusing! So, I’ll just go ahead and write out the rhyme and refrain pattern for a visual guide, followed by a famous villanelle example.

Note: Capital letters are the refrain & lowercase letters are the rhyme.

A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.

So, as you can see: A1 and A2 are the repeating refrains, while a/b are the rhyming lines.

Let’s look at an example!

One of the most famous villanelles is Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (I have bolded the repeating A1 phrase and underlined the A2 repeating refrain).

     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.

WOW! Such a powerful poem! No wonder it holds such strength, intrigue, and longevity. You can really see how those repeating lines build up momentum in tone, in the heaviness of emotion throughout the poem, in a hope or longing for the author’s father to beat death–to ‘rage’ against the dying light (his life extinguishing).

YOU TRY!

I would love to see your villanelle examples! Feel free to comment them OR email them to me if you’re not comfortable having them posted here. Remember: Most villanelle topics are chosen so that they are suitable for repetition. Much like my published example, “Therapy” the speaker was having very difficult time in the relationship and even the therapist couldn’t figure out how to fix that broken heart. In Thomas’ example, well…there’s nothing more intense than dealing with losing a loved one. You may even choose to write happy villanelles too that require repetition: can’t figure out where to move, couldn’t choose between two great desserts, daydreaming all day about vacation?! All great topics! I’d love to see them and your thoughts on my published work 🙂

See you all really soon!

B

Funny thing about cellophane is that it suffocates as it protects.

This Too Shall Pass…

I pray that if I say it enough, an Angel–waiting–wrapped in cellophane will release its wings, feather-by-feather, cover me in Peace and Grace, so Light that my trepidation will Soar against the Heavens as Stars;

burst into gas, alight as a new awakening galaxy.

Or am I made of cellophane? Do you see so clearly through me? Quickly pick apart the pieces of my cogs and wheels–brain gives way to take shape in Power. Sit by and watch the flooding chambers of my heart, and wait on baited breath

to see if the left will ever fill again.

What flows through Your now parchment mind in those twenty seconds; circulating from root to tip?

Flowing

Flowing

  Waiting

Poetry Book Review of the Week-Love Through the Poet’s Eyes

I have heard the name Mark Doty spoken in different poetry circles at various events and I have also read a select amount of poems by Doty as well so I figured that I would further my experience of his poetry by reading a collection of is. Though I did not know very much about his life, Doty’s poem “The Embrace” in his collection of selected poems Fire to Fire immersed me into his world with such passion and artistry, I could not put the work down and had to write about it.

This same effect goes for Paul Eluard; although I have read much less of his work than Doty, I knew that Eluard was a poet of love and that in itself drew me towards his collection of poetry Last Love Poems. Eluard’s poetry has a way of consuming you with imagery and accessible detail about his lover and at times gives you a glimpse into his own heart. His poem “Absence”, like Doty’s “The Embrace” is very much about love, but about loss as well.

As I stated before, when I chose Doty’s work, I did not know anything about his life; I did not know that he was a homosexual and that his lover was diagnosed with AIDS and died rather young. I am glad that I decided to read his work before I knew any background because it allowed me to remove myself from any type of bias or preconceptions. I loved the sensitive moments of this piece, the ease at which he flowed through line-by-line and stanza-by-stanza, and also how we never get lost in either the emotion or the trail of events.

When I came across the information about his life, I turned my attention back to his poem “The Embrace”. The raw emotion alone truly resonated with me, as it is the first thing that I look for when reading a poem:

You weren’t well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace. (Doty, 1-4)

Here, Doty has set the story in only four lines. The reader already knows that there is a relationship here, and assumes that it is a romantic one with tender word choices such as “handsomeness” or “tinged” and “grace”. The reader also notices that there is something of great loss in the author’s voice; his loved one is sickly but is still admired.

It is in stanzas three and four that I began to realize the true craft of Mark Doty. Not only was he able to captivate me in the first stanza with powerful language and emotion, I did not even notice how the lines wrapped so eloquently (something that I myself strive for in my formal work, such as the sestina). At first glance, I thought that it might be a sestina because of the six stanzas, but when I realized there were no repeating end words and only four lines to each stanza, I was pleasantly surprised that the stanzas were simply beautiful quatrains:

We seemed to be moving from some old house
where we’d live, boxes everywhere, things
in disarray: that was the story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative

by your face, the physical fact of your face:
inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.
Why so difficult, remembering the actual look
of you? Without a photograph, without strain? (Doty, 9-16)

In these two stanzas, Doty elongates the lines as they wrap around each other making this narrative poem seem effortless. This way of wrapping the lines is very effective as it allows us to stay immersed in the story without forgetting the plot or the sentiment.

Finally, “The Embrace” illustrates Doty’s overall ability to write narrative poetry. Although this is apparent in the entire piece, the final stanza demonstrates a stanza of completion of both feeling and plot:

Bless you. You came back, so I could see you
once more, plainly, so I could rest against you
without thinking this happiness lessened anything,
without thinking you were alive again. (21-24)

The poem takes a complete full turn and brings the reader from the moments of reminiscing to reality: the lover is gone but still very much alive in the author’s heart and of course memory.

.The second poem that I chose to write about, “Absence” is the epitome of a love poem in my eyes. Much like the previous poem, it opens in a grandiose yet sentimental style that captures the reader’s attention:

I speak to you over cities
I speak to you over plains
my mouth is against your ear
the two sides of the walls face
my voice which acknowledges you.
I speak to you of eternity. (Eluard, 1-6)

“I speak to you over cities/ I speak to you over plains” is almost breathless as Eluard begins his poems. He allows the reader to truly be inside of the poem and experience everything themselves as the account unfolds:

O cities memories of cities
cities draped with our desires
cities early and late
cities strong cities intimate
stripped of all their makers
their thinkers their phantoms (7-12).

The repetition of the word “cities” gathers momentum in the middle of the piece which is needed in order to keep the poem from being a dull list of places that the lovers may have visited or talked about visiting. The language alone is enthralling and takes the written images on the page into the dreamscape that is being unfolded before our eyes. It utilizes ideals that are very common to poems about love such as the feelings of longing and undying hope, but adds different elements as well. There are colors, textures, sounds, and major affectations that make this piece a remarkable love poem:

Landscape ruled by emerald
live living ever-living
the wheat of the sky on our earth
nourishes my voice I dream and cry
I laugh and dream between the flames
between the clusters of sunlight
and over my body your body extends
the layer of its clear mirror (13-20).

You can feel this poem (“ I laugh and dream between the flames/between the cluster of sunlight/and over my body your body extends/the layer of its clear mirror”) and that is what true poetry is about, an experience. Eluard, like Doty, has allowed us to be a part of his heart and its voyage, become a part of his life through words. These two poems are wonderful examples of love poetry, although Doty’s is much more of an emotional narrative while Eluard’s has no concrete storyline but much more abstract emotion that is enhanced by scarce punctuation (which I take very well to), and Eluard’s piece and overall writing is much more traditional in both content and style and Doty’s subject matter and form are much more contemporary. However, they have brilliance in craft certainly in common as well believable emotion. Mark Doty and Paul Eluard showed us that love does not discriminate but is welcome to all walks of life.

*Mark Doty has a blog! Please check it out 🙂
http://markdoty.blogspot.com/