Thread: Battlegrounds
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Unread 03-27-2025, 03:31 PM
Yves S L Yves S L is offline
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Hello Jan,

I am all for little variations in a form, but for me your repetition of "stone" indicates you could probably find something better, a better rhyme, better lines, better movement in the "chord" progression.

In terms of the "chord" progression (the movement of mood and motif across the stanzas), I would swap stanzas 2 and 4. One of the conventions of a villanelle is a stanza which functions like an epigram with some oddball witty or surprising saying which takes an unusual angle at the dominant thematic riff, and I reckon the poem is better off to immediately amplify the serious mood of stanza 1, and then latter go for your epigram and then bring the poem home with doubling down of "mythicness" of the last two stanzas.

Also moving stanza 4 up to stanza 2 means you bring in the "mythic" motif earlier, and allow the final two stanzas to be foregrounded, instead of just suddenly pilling on all the mythic stuff in your last three stanzas.
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