1. The Villanelle is a wonderfully challenging poetry form. It consists of
ninteen lines which comprise of two rhymes that are very different in
the way they are used.
The unique thing about this form is that the first and third lines of the
first verse become the alternating final lines of the next four verses.
So the choice of the first and last line is very important and more so
because in the last stanza they form a couplet and become the
"Closure".
If things weren't difficult enough already, all the 2nd lines of each
stanza rhyme with each other.
The Dylan Thomas Poem below is considered to be the finest example
of this form and to help look at the rhyme patterns I've broken the
lines into colour. Purple has been chosen for the first line and Red for
third line of the first stanza.
The first line of each follows the first stanza rhyme.
Blue for the centre line rhyme. This line is probably the most
important line in each stanza and the most difficult one to construct
and I would recommend care in selecting your primary rhyme.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
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.
Dylan Thomas
Below are other examples of this form of poetry. See what you can make
of them.
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 a disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop
The Stalkers Villanelle
unsaid.
She flicks her hair, just as she
would in bed
When she'd make love as if it
were a chore.
She doesn't realize that she is
dead.
She doesn't realize that she is
dead.
Remembering the ring, the vows
we swore,
I follow her like something left
unsaid.
These strangers can't discern the
life she's led.
They see a charming smile; I see
a whore
And follow her like something
left unsaid.
She drives the car I gave her
when we wed.
She grips a steering wheel I've
gripped before.
She doesn't realize that she is
dead.
She surely feels her whole life lies
ahead
As she steps briskly through the
exit door.
She doesn't realize that she is
dead.
I follow her like something left
unsaid.
She's stepping from the car—her
legs, her head!
Watching her stroll into the
grocery store,
I follow her like something left
Jeff Holt
Reading Scheme
Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun.
Jane has a big doll. Peter has a ball.
Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run!
Here is Mummy. She has baked a bun.
Here is the milkman. He has come to call.
Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun.
Go Peter! Go Jane! Come, milkman, come!
The milkman likes Mummy. She likes them all.
Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run!
Here are the curtains. They shut out the sun.
Let us peep! On tiptoe Jane! You are small!
Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun.
I hear a car, Jane. The milkman looks glum.
Here is Daddy in his car. Daddy is tall.
Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run!
Daddy looks very cross. Has he a gun?
Up milkman! Up milkman! Over the wall!
Here is Peter. Here is Jane. They like fun.
Look, Jane, look! Look at the dog! See him run!
Wendy Cope
THE BALLAD
Centuries-old in practice, the composition of ballads began in the
European folk tradition, in many cases accompanied by musical
instruments. Ballads were not originally transcribed, but rather
preserved orally for generations, passed along through recitation. Their
subject matter dealt with religious themes, love, tragedy, domestic
crimes, and sometimes even political propaganda.
A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters
hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. At best, a
ballad does not tell the reader what’s happening, but rather shows the
reader what’s happening, describing each crucial moment in the trail of
events. To convey that sense of emotional urgency, the ballad is often
constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or
four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all
alternating lines.
Ballads began to make their way into print in fifteenth-century England.
During the Renaissance, making and selling ballad broadsides became a
popular practice, though these songs rarely earned the respect of artists
because their authors, called "pot poets," often dwelled among the lower
classes.
However, the form evolved into a writer’s sport. Nineteenth-century
poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworthwrote
numerous ballads. Coleridge’s "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the tale of
a cursed sailor aboard a storm-tossed ship, is one of the English
language’s most revered ballads. Other balladeers, including Thomas
Percy and, later, W. B. Yeats, contributed to the English tradition. In
America, the ballad evolved into folk songs such as "Casey Jones," the
cowboy favorite "Streets of Laredo," and "John Henry."
THE SONNET
From the Italian sonetto, which means "a little sound or song," the
sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for
centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in
iambic pentameter, which employ one of several rhyme schemes and
adhere to a tightly structured thematic organization. Two sonnet forms
provide the models from which all other sonnets are formed: the
Petrachan and the Shakespearean.
Petrarchan Sonnet
The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Named
after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Petrarch, the
Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight
lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The tightly
woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd, is suited for the
rhyme-rich Italian language, though there are many fine examples in
English. Since the Petrarchan presents an argument, observation,
question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or
volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines. This turn marks a shift
in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the
sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or
whatever answer the octave demands.
Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Petrarchan sonnet to England in the
early sixteenth century. His famed translations of Petrarch’s sonnets, as
well as his own sonnets, drew fast attention to the form. Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, a contemporary of Wyatt’s, whose own translations of
Petrarch are considered more faithful to the original though less fine to
the ear, modified the Petrarchan, thus establishing the structure that
became known as the Shakespearean sonnet. This structure has been
noted to lend itself much better to the comparatively rhyme-poor
English language.
Shakespearean Sonnet
The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English sonnet,
follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet
follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a
pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification,
or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an
epiphanic quality to the end. In Sonnet 130 of William Shakespeare’s
epic sonnet cycle, the first twelve lines compare the speaker’s mistress
unfavorably with nature’s beauties. But the concluding couplet swerves
in a surprising direction:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet Variations
Though Shakespeare’s sonnets were perhaps the finest examples of the
English sonnet, John Milton’s Italian-patterned sonnets (later known as
"Miltonic" sonnets) added several important refinements to the form.
Milton freed the sonnet from its typical incarnation in a sequence of
sonnets, writing the occasional sonnet that often expressed interior,
self-directed concerns. He also took liberties with the turn, allowing the
octave to run into the sestet as needed. Both of these qualities can be
seen in "When I Consider How my Light is Spent."
The Spenserian sonnet, invented by sixteenth century English poet
Edmund Spenser, cribs its structure from the Shakespearean--three
quatrains and a couplet--but employs a series of "couplet links" between
quatrains, as revealed in the rhyme scheme: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. The
Spenserian sonnet, through the interweaving of the quatrains, implicitly
reorganized the Shakespearean sonnet into couplets, reminiscent of the
Petrarchan. One reason was to reduce the often excessive final couplet
of the Shakespearean sonnet, putting less pressure on it to resolve the
foregoing argument, observation, or question.
Sonnet Sequences
There are several types of sonnet groupings, including the sonnet
sequence, which is a series of linked sonnets dealing with a unified
subject. Examples include Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from
the Portuguese and Lady Mary Roth’s The Countess of Montgomery’s
Urania, published in 1621, the first sonnet sequence by an English
woman.
Within the sonnet sequence, several formal constraints have been
employed by various poets, including the corona (crown) and sonnet
redoublé. In the corona, the last line of the initial sonnet acts as the first
line of the next, and the ultimate sonnet’s final line repeats the first line
of the initial sonnet. La Corona by John Donne is comprised of seven
sonnets structured this way. The sonnet redoublé is formed of 15
sonnets, the first 14 forming a perfect corona, followed by the final
sonnet, which is comprised of the 14 linking lines in order.
Modern Sonnets
The sonnet has continued to engage the modern poet, many of whom
also took up the sonnet sequence, notably Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert
Lowell, and John Berryman. Stretched and teased formally and
thematically, today’s sonnet can often only be identified by the ghost
imprint that haunts it, recognizable by the presence of 14 lines or even
by name only. Recent practitioners of this so-called “American” sonnet
include Gerald Stern, Wanda Coleman, Ted Berrigan, and Karen
Volkman. Hundreds of modern sonnets, as well as those representing
the long history of the form, are collected in the recent anthology The
Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in
English, edited by Philis Levin.
TERZA RIMA
Invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the late thirteenth
century to structure his three-part epic poem, The Divine Comedy, terza
rima is composed of tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires
the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the
first and third lines in the following tercet. Thus, the rhyme scheme
(aba, bcb, cdc, ded) continues through to the final stanza or line. Dante
chose to end each canto of the The Divine Comedy with a single line that
completes the rhyme scheme with the end-word of the second line of the
preceding tercet.
Terza rima is typically written in an iambic line, and in English, most
often in iambic pentameter. If another line length is chosen, such as
tetrameter, the lines should be of the same length. There are no limits to
the number of lines a poem composed in terza rima may have.
Possibly developed from the tercets found in the verses of Provencal
troubadours, who were greatly admired by Dante, the tripartite stanza
likely symbolizes the Holy Trinity. Early enthusiasts of terza rima,
including Italian poets Boccaccio and Petrarch, were particularly
interested in the unifying effects of the form
Fourteenth-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer introduced terza
rima to England with his poem "Complaints to his Lady," while Thomas
Wyatt is credited, with popularizing its use in the English language
through his translations and original works. Later, the English
Romantic poets experimented with the form, including Lord Byron and
Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose "Ode to the West Wind" is an example of
what is sometimes called "terza rima sonnet," in which the final stanza
comes in couplet form. A clever mixture of poetic techniques, the poem
is a series of five terza rima sonnets, of which the following is the first:
0 wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, 0 hear!
Twentieth-century examples of terza rima come in two different forms:
poets who have written in the form and scholars and poets who have
translated Dante. Those who have written in terza rima usually employ
near and slant rhymes, as the English language, though syntactically
quite versatile, is rhyme poor. "The Yachts" by William Carlos
Williams and "Acquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost are two
examples. More recent works written in terza rima include "The Sow"
by Sylvia Plath and the eponymous "Terza Rima" by Adrienne Rich.
While there are nearly as many translations of Dante as there are cantos
in his masterpiece, the question of how to reproduce the intricate rhyme
scheme of terza rima—namely, the reproduction of the rich rhyming
possibilities offered by the Italian language—has been a principle
concern for translators. John Ciardi chose not to concern his translation
with a faithful rendering of the terza rima rhyme scheme; he thought
such a gesture would be a "disaster." Robert Pinsky chose a different
approach in his translation of the Inferno, employing a terza rima that
rhymed when possible, and used near and slant rhymes in places where
the rhyme might seem forced, creating what he called "a plausible terza
rima in a readable English."
Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Robert Frost
THE TRIOLET
The triolet is a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used
throughout. The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward:
the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line
is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to
complete the tight rhyme scheme. Thus, the poet writes only five
original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance:
ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines.
French in origin, and likely dating to the thirteenth century, the triolet is
a close cousin of the rondeau, another French verse form emphasizing
repetition and rhyme. The earliest triolets were devotionals written by
Patrick Carey, a seventeenth-century Benedictine monk. British poet
Robert Bridges reintroduced the triolet to the English language, where it
enjoyed a brief popularity among late-nineteenth-century British poets.
Though some employed the triolet as a vehicle for light or humorous
themes, Thomas Hardy recognized the possibilities for melancholy and
seriousness, if the repetition could be skillfully employed to mark a shift
in the meaning of repeated lines.
In "How Great My Grief," Hardy displays both his mastery of the triolet
and the potency of the form:
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,
Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee?
The first line, "How great my grief, my joys how few," is, in its two
subsequent appearances, modified by the movement of time in the
poem. Initially, the line assumes a declarative position, indicating the
subject and tone of the poem, one of grief and love lost. By its third
iteration, after several queries to the person being addressed, the line
takes on the added weight of the speaker’s astonished grief that the
addressee has not, despite the years, recognized the speaker’s profound
sense of loss.
Triolet
I used to think all poets were Byronic-Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
And then I met a few. Yes it's ironic-I used to think all poets were Byronic.
They're mostly wicked as a ginless tonic
And wild as pension plans. Not long ago
I used to think all poets were Byronic-Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Wendy Cope
THE ODE
"Ode" comes from the Greek aeidein, meaning to sing or chant, and
belongs to the long and varied tradition of lyric poetry. Originally
accompanied by music and dance, and later reserved by the Romantic
poets to convey their strongest sentiments, the ode can be generalized as
a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.
There are three typical types of odes: the Pindaric, Horatian, and
Irregular. The Pindaric is named for the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who
is credited with inventing the ode. Pindaric odes were performed with a
chorus and dancers, and often composed to celebrate athletic victories.
They contain a formal opening, or strophe, of complex metrical
structure, followed by an antistrophe, which mirrors the opening, and
an epode, the final closing section of a different length and composed
with a different metrical structure. The William Wordsworth poem "Ode
on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" is
a very good example of an English language Pindaric ode. It begins:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The Horatian ode, named for the Roman poet Horace, is generally more
tranquil and contemplative than the Pindaric ode. Less formal, less
ceremonious, and better suited to quiet reading than theatrical
production, the Horatian ode typically uses a regular, recurrent stanza
pattern. An example is the Allen Tate poem "Ode to the Confederate
Dead," excerpted here:
Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.
The Irregular ode has employed all manner of formal possibilities, while
often retaining the tone and thematic elements of the classical ode. For
example, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats was written based on
his experiments with the sonnet. Other well-known odes include Percy
Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," Robert
Creeley's "America,"Bernadette Mayer's "Ode on Periods," and Robert
Lowell's"Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket."
Here is one example of the form you might be able to appreciate:
To Sleep
BY JOHN KEATS
O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.
BLANK VERSE
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has
been described as "probably the most common and influential form that
English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul
Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in
blank verse."
LYRIC POETRY
A short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses
thought and feeling. Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem
about feeling (like the sonnet).it is more often applied to a poem
expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling, such as the
elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode. The emotion is or seems
personal In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung,
accompanied by a lyre. Lyric poetry makes its impact in a very brief
space. It stresses moments of feeling. It is often quite memorable. In
these and several other ways, lyric poems resemble two other kinds of
"texts" with which we are quite familiar: ninety-second popular songs
and fifteen-second television commercials. Both of these aim, in
extremely brief time, to capture moments of feeling. Both aim to imprint
themselves in our memory. To achieve this, besides repeated air play,
both use internal forms of repetition.
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE
Dramatic monologue in poetry, also known as a persona poem, shares
many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is
implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed
voice—a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic
monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without
overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities
that are left to the audience to interpret.
Though the technique is evident in many ancient Greek dramas, the
dramatic monologue as a poetic form achieved its first era of distinction
in the work of Victorian poet Robert Browning. Browning’s poems "My
Last Duchess" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister," though
considered largely inscrutable by Victorian readers, have become
models of the form. His monologues combine the elements of the
speaker and the audience so deftly that the reader seems to have some
control over how much the speaker will divulge in his monologue. This
complex relationship is evident in the following excerpt from "My Last
Duchess":
Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark' -- and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E'en then would be some stooping...
In the twentieth century, the influence of Browning’s monologues can be
seen in the work of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. In Eliot’s "The Love Song
of J. Alfred Prufrock," readers find the voice of the poet cloaked in a
mask, a technique that Eliot mastered in his career. More recently, a
number of poets have offered variations on the form, including "Mirror"
and"Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath, and "Daffy Duck in
Hollywood"by John Ashbery. John Berryman used the form in his series
ofDream Songs, writing poems with shifting narrators, including his
alter egos "Henry" and "Mr. Bones."
One powerful example of the interplay between a dramatic monologue
and the perception of the audience is "Night, Death, Mississippi,"
by Robert Hayden. In the poem, Hayden adopts the shocking persona of
an aging Klan member, listening longingly to the sounds of a lynching
outside, but too feeble to join. He says to himself:
Christ, it was better
than hunting bear
which don’t know why
you want him dead.
The effect of reading the casual violence of the poem is more devastating
than any commentary the poet could have provided. Hayden wrote
many other dramatic monologue poems, including several dramatizing
African American historical figures such as Phillis Wheatley and Nat
Turner, as well as inventive characters such as the alien voice reporting
his observations in "American Journal."
Though not written in the first person, James Dickey's long poem
"Falling" is inspired by a true story, and offers the impossible narrative
of a stewardess who is accidentally blown from a plane and falls
helplessly to the ground. The poem is voiced by an omniscient speaker
who seems to fly invisibly beside her, observing her calm descent, her
twists and tumbles, listening as she imagines herself as a goddess
looking for water to dive into, and then finally watching as she removes
her clothes, unsnapping her bra and sliding out of her girdle, before
finally coming to rest in a Kansas field. Dickey transforms this terrifying
reality into sensual transcendence, as he writes: "Her last superhuman
act the last slow careful passing of her hands / All over her unharmed
body desired by every sleeper in his dream."
NARRATIVE POEMS
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry which tells a story, often making use
of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is
usually written in metered verse. The poems that make up this genre
may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is
usually dramatic, with objectives, diverse characters, and
meter. Narrative poems include epics, ballads, idylls and lays.