mayhap: hennaed hands, writing (Default)
mayhap ([personal profile] mayhap) wrote2016-04-13 10:43 pm

Wednesday reading — rhymes

What I've been reading

Not that much, because it was a busy week.

I did read this anthology of villanelles, because I enjoy villanelles. Especially the whole section of villanelles about villanelles, like this one by John Hollander:
This form with two refrains in parallel?
(Just watch the opening and the third line.)
The repetitions build the villanelle.

The subject thus established, it can swell
Across the poet-architect's design:
This form with two refrains in parallel

Must never make them jingle like a bell,
Tuneful but empty, boring and benign;
The repetitions build the villanelle

By moving out beyond the tercet's cell
(Though having two lone rhyme-sounds can confine
This form.) With two refrains in parallel

A poem can find its way into a hell
Of ingenuity to redesign
The repetitions. Build the villanelle

Till it has told the tale it has to tell;
Then two refrains will finally intertwine.
This form with two refrains in parallel
The repetitions build: The Villanelle.

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