A Villanelle

My first attempt at writing a villanelle, please tell me what you think.


Through the thick grass and falling rain,
I slip trying to make a quick escape.
On my chest wells a crimson stain.

I take my chance, but it was all in vain,
As the moonlight marked my plight,
Through the thick grass and falling rain.

I fall for no miraculous gain,
My pain sings out in the dark night,
On my chest wells a crimson stain.

I snarl out in tormented pain,
Rushing to a mangled yew tree,
Through the thick grass and falling rain.

Finally felled by a jarring sprain,
I lie crumpled in the dirt,
On my chest wells a crimson stain.

The final moments of my life drain,
Lying in the garden of my mind,
Through the grass and falling rain,
On my chest wells a crimson stain.

This was good. But...

I didn't like your repetition of the "ain" rhyme. It would have been much better if you had varied it, this would have brought more flow and would make it feel less contrived. Limiting yourself to "ain" means you repeat lots of words at the end of lines.

The repeated line of "On my chest wells a crimson stain" was effective. However, I feel that it was overused. If you had used it in just two places it would have packed much more of a punch.

Apart from that it was enjoyable. Your style is also good.


Gurby


Edit: I apologise for my lack of knowledge about Villanelles.

Ooh, I like it! (I had to look up villanelle first....and from my now-basic understanding of it, it looks like you did a good job form-wise).

It was only one rhyme (keeping with form) and at first, I thought you just rhymed the same things over and over, but then I read it again, and it was neat because it was something new and different every time. When I read it again, it seemed like every line dropped to a later place in the poem, then all merged at the end.

I feel like the second line was crowded; maybe if "trying to make" is "while making"? Also, "Lying in the garden of my mind" didn't sound quite right to me; the garden part seemed like a random place (disregard or clarify if it's not).

-Amelia

When repeating things over and over like this in a cycle, it helps to vary the sentence structure. It can be easier to get an acceptable flow going when you have a pattern of comma, comma, full-stop... but this can also get in your way, especially with repetition. Freeing yourself up to other sentence structures while still paying attention to the rhythms of the words will help keep rhymes from being forced, or wording from getting convoluted. Also: different sentence structure and punctuation let you play around with the lines you've repeated, a little; a well-placed comma or full-stop can completely change the meaning of a line and let you do new things with the same few words.

Thanks for the comments Amelia and something euclidean, I'd kind of forgotten about this poem.

Also, "Lying in the garden of my mind" didn't sound quite right to me; the garden part seemed like a random place

It was rather random, I don't think I put too much thought into the poem really, I was too intent on the structure. I'm glad that you liked the way it all sort of fell into place, due to the rhymes

euclidean, thanks for the comment on punctuation and the sentence structure, it is much appreciated and I see how it could help in this poem by add some variety and stop the rhymes sounding forced.

Dude. Go check out my contest. Enter this.

I believe that in a villanelle, the middle lines of each stanza ought to all rhyme with each other, making the ryhme scheme aba aba aba aba abaa. Unfortunately, escape, plight, night, tree, dirt, and mind do not rhyme. I'm fairly sure that they all should, so...might want to take a look at that.

The rhythm here definitely needs some work. I don't have enough time to go through the entire poem...if you'd like me to take a better look at it later, feel free to PM. A good way to solve rhythm issues is to have the same number of syllables (especially the same number of accented syllables) in each line.

Great job with the imagery!

Colleen

^^ I read through this now, and Colly here is right. There's only two rhyme sounds in a villanelle -- that's essential. So you might want to do some major edits and re submit it to the contest

Wow, thats true, I totally forgot about it when I wrote it. I will re write it and if I do it in time I'll re submit it. Thanks for that cadmium. Maybe once I've written a copy with the proper structure, if you have time, you could take a look at it?

Hurrah revision! *applauds*

And of course I'll look at it...if finals don't kill me. *shudders*

I like it, but I'd say, "It is all in vain," just so you're not switching between tenses.the present tense really helped the flow, and the last two lines worked perfectly, though I wasn't sure they'd work together.