Villanelle

This poem was written when I was in graduate school. I had been having a pen-pal correspondence and we’d been discussing poetry, formal and free-form. He contended that formal poetry could not be spontaneous, and that free-form poetry was more immediate.

My reaction was to write two poems: a free-form poem, which was actually very calculated and planned out, and this villanelle, which other than laying out the requirements of the form was written rather spontaneously. It seemed to pour itself out.

The image for the form (this is actually the third image I’ve used to back this poem) is one taken by my friend Michael O. Sajbel.