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The Art of Writing a Villanelle
A structured verse often leads to a creative outcome
Poetry and verse can be more than just rhyming and meter. Once you begin to study poetry, you realize how many forms there can be and how much structure goes into a poem.
Many traditional forms are called received forms because they are passed along from generation to generation and involve some kind of repetition, which is a form of return. In a villanelle, the first line of stanza 1 is repeated as the third line in stanzas 2 and 4 and the second-to-last line of the poem; the third line of stanza 1 is repeated as the third line in stanza 3 and 5, and the final line of the poem. In addition, the first and third lines rhyme in each stanza; the second lines of all the stanzas rhyme with one another.
A villanelle is often a great way to unlock creativity because you never know where the poem will lead.
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If you were to write poetry using a villanelle structure, imagine sentence A as a description of something specific, a tangible item eg ‘the laundry is piled with unwashed clothes’. It should be no more than 10 syllables.
Sentence B would be a completely unrelated description of something tangible. Or even better, it has to be something you believe is true eg ‘the…
