[Larry Eucher]

Lilith, I like the question you pose regarding how much a poet can vary/stretch/distort a form before those variations become flaws. In the strictest sense, I guess any variation is a flaw from the form, but in a practical sense I feel it becomes a problem only when it becomes a distraction. That, of course, will come at different points for different readers based on their experience and sophistication. Since we are now getting close to the bottom of page two on a lengthy (but very entertaining) thread, I'd suggest you post this question in a separate thread if it gets lost here. It will be interesting to see how others answer this question.

Ok, as long as I'm here, this is my first ovillejo in response to Rhina's dare...

<u>Washington</u>

I stand in wonder of
The Guv,
Which everyone knows,
Just grows,
Like a wino's swig,
Too big.
While they all dance their jig,
The taxes are the headache
We pay for this mistake.
The Guv just grows too big.

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

I've spent this week absorbed by a project that has swallowed me up completely, and have missed all the excitement on this thread for far too long! I can't believe all the marvelous ovillejos that have come in while I've been looking the other way: Here's one by Nyctom on astrology that seems flip and fluffy until the very last line, which is so good--"The stars don't speak to us"--that it draws the reader right back to line one for a second, more conscious reading: bravo!

And here's Carol's elegy to youth: oh, do I recognize this feeling! Wonderful use of a long scholarly word that might seem risky in such a short, playful form: "moratorium," and it works perfectly, chimes with inevitability and useless wishing.

Nadia's ovillejo proves--in case anybody had any doubt--that the forms--all of them--are endlessly flexible. Who would have expected a little game like this ten-line toy to be capable of such a question? But it is, and Nadia has made it work.

And here's one--Larry Eucher's--with a political slant and a last line that flows naturally and feels inevitable. If I may suggest just two small changes, Larry, consider "everybody" instead of "everyone" in line 3, for the meter, and maybe one more syllable in line 5, which shouldn't be hard. "Headache" and "mistake" may trouble the purists, who object to rhymes not accented on the same syllable: how do the rest of you feel about that? It's not any rule, but your ear, that has to have the final word. I'm not sure how my ear feels about this one.

And the villanelles that have been posted are outstanding. Lilith, thanks for posting "One Art." I agree with you: what may seem like "flaws" to some in this magnificent poem are, to me, part of the theme, and brilliant. thnaks for pointing that out.

Jim, your "At the Lame Peddler's Burial" is a beauty, and done the hard way, in dimeter. But it says all of what needs to be said, and with all the more force for the brevity.

Now I'm going to raise some hackles: to my ear, the Justice villanelle quoted by Tony Lombardy is loose to the point of not simply stretching the box, but kicking it to pieces. I need more regularity than this. And it bothers me to say so, because Justice is a poet I love. Am I out in the cold now?

[robert mezey]

Well, I think so, Rhina, though this is just one
man's opinion. Justice makes it clear very early
on that he's going to be playing fast, loose & prosy
with the meter, and to my ear, he does it with his
usual brilliance. The middle line of each tercet
is a hexameter, but like most of the pentameters,
it admits extra syllables, sometimes quite a lot.
And I love the various & ingenious rhyming---when
I read "the deep end," I feel what Borges called
el thrill]. But while I enjoy and admire
it, I would have to confess that it doesn't move
me the way his other loose villanelle does, "To the
Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughn." That, I'd
say, is a masterpiece.

[Larry Eucher]

Rhina, thanks for the feedback on the ovillejo. I agree with your comments. Thanks for all your remarks. You're a delightful person.

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Well, if I'm out in the cold anyway I may as well get into even more trouble: I think the Hecht villanelle is too loose, too. It seems to me the advantage of such forms is their built-in music, which may be used in a variety of ways, but should not be thrown away. With all due respect to one of the master poets writing in the language today--Anthony Hecht is that, certainly--this particular poem doesn't use the form so much as fight it.

And here's what I forgot to add yesterday: your villanelle on the phrase "I must confess," Carol, is a tongue-in-cheek delight that's good enough to use as a sample of the form.

Here's one I love, by a poet in this area who deserves to be much better known, Joseph DeRoche:

DIDACTIC VILLANELLE

We know some things that we intend to do.
We mean to love. We mean to write, to call.
But we are busy and the love falls through.

Oh, what the hell, the words we speak are true.
We didn't have the time. That's it. That's all.
We know some things. What we intend to do:

The right thing all the time. We know that, too,
We're late and, true, half the time forgetful.
Well, we are busy and the love falls through.

Time strikes, we know, like fists, and black and blue
With guilt, with hang-dog shame, we're sorrowful.
We know some things. What we intend to do

In love grows cold. But, it was meant for you.
When the spring I rose to meet you in turned fall,
Why was I busy? Why did my love fall through?

I'll take the phone and lift it, dial, call.
I'll tell you what time's meant to me. I'll crawl
To you in time with things I'd meant to do.
But we are busy. and the love falls through.

[robert mezey]

Well, I'm frankly puzzled, Rhina. By loose, I guess you
mean that Hecht has permitted a few extra syllables. But
while I agree that it's not one of his better poems (and
certainly not in a class with Justice's villanelle or
Robinson's or Bishop's), it doesn't break the form as
much as the DeRoche one does, which fudges one rhyme---
"sorrowful"---and completely wrecks another---"forgetful".
Especially in forms like the villanelle, I think the
rhymes must be all generally slant, or all exact. And
the enjambments ought to be smoother. If you won't allow
Hecht his few extra syllables, what do you think of all
the sestinas of the last five or ten years, almost all
of them in free verse?

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

Easy question: I dislike them. If you're going to use repetition, the interval between repetitions should be consistent enough to allow a pattern to develop, even if the ear perceives it only subliminally. Somewhat irregular repetitions tease, which is still a pleasure; but wildly irregular repetition is not a design anymore, but disorder, and that doesn't please, because the discomfort goes beyond mere teasing. Free-verse sestinas don't build any "box" they can threaten to get out of, so what's the game?

I find DeRoche's variations in the center lines a pleasur-able tease: they threaten to go too far, but never do. For my ear, at least. And the "threat to escape" in the center lines is always contained by the orderly outside lines that persist in getting you back to the obsessive thought.