Thanks to all whocommented on the poem, and apologies for not responding individually. I'm in a bad situation this week as far as personal time is converned.
I did want to indicate, however, that those who felt the poem was over-romanticized in parts, somewhat overdone, have a legitimate point. I will repeat below the comments I made when the poem was posted here in October:
Some general notes. This was a deliberate attempt to go somewhat over the top - to be more romantic and lyrical than my usual writing - and to come up with a different "voice". As part of this, I traded metrical correctness for emotion and rhythm when a line felt right to me; and I went to the closely related rhymes to enhance the dream-like feeling, as Terese noted.
Confession: the poem is incomplete. This villanelle is a part - maybe 30% in terms of lines - of a much longer and more ambitious piece that I have been playing with for several years and am still unable to slap into shape. The concept is a somewhat melodramatic villanelle that goes just to the edge of sappiness; interspersed with much looser het-met stanzas of varying lengths and random rhyme. The het-met stanzas are indented and italicized, and essentially comment on the love poem with a different, and probably more honest, eye. Because of this structure, much of the tension and "back story" of the villanelle depends on the anti-villanelle that should accompany it, and consequently Roger and Susan had a valid point in their responses when they looked for a richer poem.
To make the thing work, the underlying villanelle has to be at least semi-decent, even if overcooked. The longer poem depends on the villanelle. What I get from your comments is that the villanelle can stand some work and improvement, but seems good enough to carry the concept. It has been encouraging, and I hope provides me with the initiative to make the rest of it work.
and this - ...the approach I'm working with, for whatever perverse reason, is the interweaving of another poem by another voice, which is intended to reveal, layer by layer, that most of the talk about Claire is bravado, that she actually spent most of the weekend with an old boyfriend (she had only recently relocated to Belgium from Paris), and that the narrator's love affair and escape from "artlessness" was with Paris, not Claire. (Of course, there's no guarantee that's true either - a poet is free to tell you what he wishes - which is the third level I'm trying to bring into the monster.)
The real Claire was named Maud...but "bawd" and "fraud" and "awed" do little to romanticize a poem, so I stole "Claire" from a girl in the Antwerp office, who was reputed to be an easy rhyme.
It seems my bravado was more believable than I thought. I hope to complete the longer poem soon - you guys have ceretainly encouraged me - and post it on the Sphere, and see if it works.
Thanks - Michael
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