{"id":318,"date":"2010-11-23T10:34:07","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T22:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=318"},"modified":"2015-08-06T13:00:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T01:00:04","slug":"an-uncomfortable-villanelle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2010\/11\/23\/an-uncomfortable-villanelle\/","title":{"rendered":"An uncomfortable villanelle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"I picked up a great book in the library the other day. A Kick in the Head – An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms<\/cite> is a children’s book describing and illustrating about 30 poetic forms. It includes obvious ones like the limerick, haiku, sonnet and couplet, but there were several that I hadn’t encountered before. I especially appreciate the forms with very rigid constraints, such as the villanelle<\/strong>, the triolet<\/strong> and the very tricky pantoum<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A few days later, I read an article by Michael Hofmann in the London Review of Books<\/a><\/cite> about the “professional controversialist and Austropathic ranter” Thomas Bernhard<\/a>. Hofmann quoted a passage and said it “loops like a villanelle”. (The passage, a powerful yet demented diatribe, makes me want to read the book.) Encountering villanelles twice within a few days inspired me to write one. Very restrictive forms are easier to write in a way, since there are fewer choices to make.<\/p>\n

Uncomfortable<\/strong><\/p>\n

A feeling that’s uncomfortable and new
\nHas filled your heart and clouded up your mind.
\nIt seems that something’s happening to you.<\/p>\n

Your old contentment’s slowly turning to
\nA strange sensation of a different kind:
\nA feeling that’s uncomfortable and new.<\/p>\n

You used to know exactly what to do
\nBut now you’ve left such certainty behind.
\nIt seems that something’s happening to you.<\/p>\n

Your thinking seems all tangled up in blue —
\nWandering, unfocussed, ill-defined —
\nA feeling that’s uncomfortable and new.<\/p>\n

Caught up in the turning of the screw,
\nHowever hard you try, you can’t unwind.
\nIt seems that something’s happening to you.<\/p>\n

You’ve been like this about a week or two
\nSince when you met her; now each day you find
\nA feeling that’s uncomfortable and new.
\nIt seems that something’s happening to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The most famous villanelle (by a long way) is Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night<\/cite> (“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”). I also found another, lighter but still brilliant, at Cat and Girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Kick in the Head<\/cite> is just one of many great kids’ books I’ve borrowed for myself while taking my boys to the library. They liked this one too — the illustrations are very lively.<\/p>\n

Next step: set the poem to music. I’ll have to keep practising my guitar. The months just fly<\/em> by!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I picked up a great book in the library the other day. A Kick in the Head – An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms is a children’s book describing and illustrating about 30 poetic forms. It includes obvious ones like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4,44,43],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal","tag-books","tag-lrb","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}