[Maryann Corbett]

It's a dull day, and my blah brain is short on inspiration. The right day for an exercise!

I happened on this villanelle by Andrew Hudgins, entitle "Villanelle with a Refrain from the Wall Street Journal." Maybe the idea of finding some random refrain line will jump-start something.

Anybody game?

Here's a link to Hudgins's poem:

www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/poem-hudgins

[Philip Quinlan]

Maryann

It's spooky that I saw this one only a couple of days ago too (the Atlantic is not a regular read for me).

Does it have to be the WSJ? Could us Brits wimp out and use the Financial Times (or the Pig Breeders Gazette)?

I've never written a Villanelle so this seems like as good a time as any.

Philip

[Maryann Corbett]

Oh, yes, Philip, take the refrain from anywhere! although there's something especially smile-inducing about getting one's refrain from a source that's utterly prosaic and dull (she said, surrounded by shelves of statutes).

[Philip Quinlan]

OK

Then I declare (before the assembled company) that my refrain shall be taken from the business pages of The (Manchester as I still call it) Guardian:

Some do, some manifestly don't [get it]

(From an article about the need to curb city banker's bonuses). Plenty of scope for scallywaggery there I think. A truism.

And it shall be entitled:

"On First Looking Into Homer (Simpson)'s Grauniad". Brits will know what I mean.

As Arnie says - "I'll be back"!

Philip

[Ann Drysdale]

From The Gwent Gazette...

“Council to switch off every other light”
(responding to an orchestrated plea) -
“Nobody will be in the dark all night”.

Folk bleated that the recent dark was quite
A godsend to those bent on burglary.
"Council to switch off every other light"

Seemed to address the frightened voters’ plight;
With ersatz twilight as a remedy
Nobody will be in the dark all night.

No darkness anywhere? I tried to fight
This crude pollution – but I’m nobody.
Council to leave on every other light.

There might be meteors in the sky. There might
Be comets that our kids will never see.
Nobody will be in the dark all night.

But darkness doesn’t hinge on lack of sight.
What can they offer to the likes of me?
Council to switch off every other light?
Nobody will be in the dark. All night.

[Maryann Corbett]

Good one, Ann, and a good prod for me. I'm having trouble finding a second refrain that's a strong as the first one I'm stealing from the New York Times book review. The task will have to stew while I deal with leaf raking etc. today.

[Maryann Corbett]

Villanelle on a Line from the New York Times Book Review
(or An Excoriation upon Strunk and White's The Elements of Style)

A quote, "I hate the guts of English grammar,"
is lifted from the pen of E. B. White.
Well, so do we all. But most of us are dumber

than White with words. He and old Strunk, his mentor,
knew in their bones and gizzards how to write
well, but both were incompetents at grammar.

Now freshmen in their composition slumber
are told No passives! But wrong examples blight
the lesson, leaving them at sea. What's dumber,

each exhortation whacks us like a hammer:
Be clear. Omit the needless words. All right,
but how? You need the guts of English grammar

to brace the words, to get them not to stammer.
Mostly we give it up without a fight,
texting and e-mail smiting us dumb and dumber.

That's why I gave my copy to my daughter.
She might not laugh (but then again, she might).
So White hated the guts of English grammar?
So do we all. But most of us are dumber.


(You might need to refer to this thread to make sense of the poem:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...t=Strunk+White

[Petra Norr]

Great villanelles, Maryann and Ann!
I can't say the same for mine, but I gave it a shot. It's a shorty:


Villanette on a Headline from the Guardian Online


"Virgin edges closer to northern rock."
That chiselled, glacial face no doubt enchants
but love and lust can be an icy shock.

Imagine cuddling with a Swedish Spock,
a Vulcan Svensson who can not romance
virgin edges. Closer to northern rock

and farther from a sweaty, normal jock
who knows what’s thumping in his heart and pants.
But love and lust can be an icy shock

if you’re expecting kisses round the clock
from someone who is locked in granite stance.
Virgin edges closer to northern rock
but love and lust can be an icy shock.
.