This week our Crib Notes turn to another ‘fixed form’ wordcage – the villanelle. You’ll find a recording of my poem Squatters on the ‘Love and Nonsense’ page, via the Listen button in the main menu. We’ve also stashed all we have to say under the Crib Notes tab – alongside notes on the Sestina and the Ghazal. The text of Squatters is pasted at the bottom of this page for convenience.
Squatters is an unseasonably wintry poem, so here’s a photo taken just this week.
We’ve had a spectacular showing of butterflies this month – Peacocks and Red Admirals as well as the pesky Cabbage Whites, its young intent on shredding our struggling cauliflowers. But, for my money, this Comma is one of the best, with those delicately pinked edges to their wings.
Enjoy the notes – and let us know if you have a favourite villanelle or have tried crafting one yourself. We’ll be back in a fortnight’s time with crib notes on a much less well-known form – the Tanka. Till then, take care, enjoy the sunshine, and pass on news of the wordcage.
Origins ‘Rustic song’ is the original phrase from which the Italian word ‘villanelle’ was derived – so why is it mainly thought of as French form? What was once a very fluid bag of poetic tricks found its ‘fixed’ form in "Villanelle", a poem by the French poet Jean Passerat (1534–1602). Popularised by his countryman Théodore de Banville in the nineteenth century, the formula was taken up with enthusiasm by British poets beguiled by the intricacies of its repetitions and rhymes. In terms of theme, the Villanelle began with pastoral references and themes of love – but nowadays, its subject is an open shop. As you’ll see when we get to my villanelle, I have for once stuck to those original themes of rustic love. Form A villanelle in the twenty first century consists of nineteen lines, bent into shape by three main elements: a rigid stanza structure, two key lines that recur throughout the poem, and an equally rigid (but complex) rhyme pattern into which those key lines – and all others – must fit. As far as the stanzas go, five stanzas of three lines each (tercets) are capped by a single four-line stanza (quatrain) – giving us nineteen lines in all. The rhyme scheme is established by the first three-line stanza, which sets up the rhymes and the key lines that govern the remainder of the poem. In the first tricet, lines one and three rhyme with each other. These then become ‘key lines’ that alternate as the final line of each of the following four tercets. In each case, the key line makes a rhyme with the opening line of the new tercet. Meanwhile the second line of the first stanza – sandwiched between those two key lines – sets up a different rhyme that will be echoed by the second line of each of the tercets which follow. The pattern can be summarised like this, where A1 & A2 are they rhyming key lines, and ‘a’ is a stream of first lines that will necessarily rhyme with whichever key line is in play. ‘b’ carries a different rhyme through the core of the poem. You’ll notice that it’s only in the final stanza that the two key lines established in the opening stanza appear together again – reunited, for one last job, as the concluding couplet. 1) A1bA2 2) abA1 3) abA2 4) abA1 5) abA2 6) abA1A2 What you’ll also notice from my poem, and from many much finer exemplars, is that the key lines are playfully tweaked to serve the developing narrative – and deliver a sense of arrival. You can listen to and read my poem, Squatters, here*, or find the text at the foot of this page. Exemplars For more illustrious examples, Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is by far the most famous and beloved, and very moving to boot. Auden too is a dab hand at a villanelle. His If I could tell you demonstrates how the impetus of those two fresh lines that begin each tercet balances the recurrence of the rhymes. You can see too how the simple addition of a question mark to one of the key lines gives added weight in the final couplet. For a really modern and inventive villanelle – not just a new take on the form, but a taking-on of it - Gail McConnell’s Untitled/Villanelle is wonderful. Method Establishing the key lines was my first step. What will I write about? I was taking on the villanelle in winter, just after a stay in a cottage where the stone walls, despite being two feet thick, were always cold to the touch. In fact it took a full week for the place to really warm up – which it finally did just as we were leaving, obviously. Ticking away in the back of my mind for the next few weeks was that simple paradox; such thick walls, designed to keep the cold at bay, were themselves frigid and forbidding. It’s this cold, and this paradox, that seeps into the poem from the off. A1 - Cold strikes hardest through the thickest walls A2 – (and) Winter holds this cottage in its thrall. The word ‘thrall’ is a bit of an unusual one, but it’s a word I like – quite muscular – and a word plucked from a list of rhymes I drew up as candidates to echo the ‘walls’ of my first line, and serve as possible destinations for subsequent lines: falls apalls palls gauls shawls thrall all befalls calls These two key statements A1 and A2 are, in my poem, split by a second line that kicks into gear the ‘plot’ of the poem: b - We steal inside while frozen backs are turned. What can I say? I like story, even in a poem. But again, I wanted to be sure that my second line ended with a word for which there are plenty of rhymes, giving me sufficient room for manoeuvre as the poem progresses: Turned, burn, return, learn, firm, affirm, squirm, adjourn, spurn… As you can see, I’m no purest when it comes to rhyme. Finally, I took the opportunity to invent a word, I think, in the final line. That’s the fun of working within such a tight format; it is still no bar to invention. The answer to the question ‘Stick or twist?’ is always (as with most fixed poetic structures), both. Tips By far the hardest aspect of the villanelle is to avoid the key lines becoming redundant. Dull repetition, delivering neither additional meaning nor a surprise will render any poem inert. Try to keep the poem on its toes with small movements forward or skips aside. __________ Squatters Cold strikes hardest through the thickest walls. We steal inside while frozen backs are turned and Winter holds this cottage in its thrall. And this, before the coldest blanket falls; before the full-on ‘Christmas scene’ is earned cold strikes harshly through the thickest walls. A puzzle; surely thicker walls must call for smaller fires? The hearth, ablaze, confirms; Winter holds this cottage in its thrall. What happened here? What crimes are not recalled? Whose icy acts condemn young hearts to learn that cold strikes hardest through the thickest walls? For months no sunlight warmed this stone - and all Earth’s magma’s trapped; it cannot purge or burn - so Winter holds this cottage in its thrall. A kiss - young blood runs hot and free; we crawl into our pirate bed and there affirm while cold strikes hardest through the thickest walls still Winter holds no lovecot in its thrall. ©Fraser Grace
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Till next time.
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