[Susan McLean]

Bruce Bennett:
I have decided to lead off the discussion with villanelles because well over a third of those who submitted poems submitted a villanelle. Not surprisingly, just about all of these displayed a high level of craft, so my basis for selection could not be craft alone. As I read and reread them, three continued to stand out, though for different reasons. The two I have chosen to begin with are “Birthday Villanelle” and “Lovechildren.”


BIRTHDAY VILLANELLE

The integers appear and disappear
and take their fractions with them when they go,
but you are more yourself each passing year.

The water makes a jagged rock a sphere
by unrelenting bouts of ebb and flow:
the integers appear and disappear.

The numbers used to be a source of fear,
distracting you from what you've come to know,
that you are more yourself each passing year.

So much that seemed too far, now seems too near;
so much that seems too fast, once seemed too slow;
the integers appear and disappear.

But shedding off your youthful green veneer,
you're only just beginning now to grow,
becoming more yourself each passing year.

Your hands, your arms, your face from ear to ear,
your hips, your breasts, your legs from toe to toe --
the integers appear and disappear,
and you are more yourself each passing year.



“Birthday Villanelle” appealed to me for its seriousness of tone and subject. It may be a commonplace that one becomes “more oneself” as one ages, but it’s still a somewhat startling thought, and the poem gets right to the point. There’s something mysterious about the opening two lines, almost phantasmagoric, as if one is witnessing some magical display. For me they called to mind Hardy’s haunting poem, “Going And Staying,” with its depiction of Time as a sort of windmill with “ghostly arms revolving," ultimately sweeping away everything. The third line, however, brings the reader smack back to the reality of the aging process itself: the sense that one is what one is, only more so.

In stanza two we get an image of that process in action: the "jagged rock" is being worn away to "a sphere." The time frame though is suggestive, since it encompasses a period incalculably longer than any human life. The reader is made aware of a process that could take an eon, and the impression of inexorability is reinforced both by the adjective “unrelenting” and our customary association of the phrase “ebb and flow” with the ceaseless motion of the sea. Then those integers flicker in and out of view again, exemplifying the “ebb and flow.”

There is a certain ambiguity of meaning for me that begins in the third stanza. “The numbers used to be a source of fear”: but when in the past was that true, or for how long a period? Has the speaker now overcome that fear, and, if so, was that as a result of recognizing that it’s a good thing “that you are more yourself each passing year”? Yet, if it’s a good thing, why the apparent negativity in the first two lines of stanza four: “too near” and “too slow” are in the present tense, and would seem to denote a current “source of fear.” Though admittedly puzzled as to how to parse the meaning of these lines in relation to what appears positive about becoming more oneself, I do admire them as writing, the way they neatly change direction at mid-line and turn swiftly into their opposites.

Stanza five begins with a line that seems to me not up to the writing of most of the rest of the poem. The verb “shedding” would normally include “off,” and while I like the idea of “youthful green,” I’m not sure some single word might not serve better as a modifier for “veneer.” Moreover, still uncertain of the logic of stanzas three and four, I don’t know quite know how to take the “But” that begins stanza five.

Finally, the rhymes at the end of the first two lines of the last stanza trouble me. “your face from ear to ear” is not felicitous phrasing (one’s face always extends from ear to ear), nor do I see that detail's direct relation to those “integers” or to becoming more oneself. (Is one’s older face more oneself than one’s younger face?) The same is true for “your legs from toe to toe.”

So, to sum up, although this poem stood out for me and I like very much what it is doing as well as much of the writing of it, I don’t feel finally that it lives up to its full potential.