Poetry (Ver.2) Options

[Yuki Fukurou]

Heh...it seems my small poetry thread here was deleted during the attack. Oh well.



Anyway...(considering that I'm sometimes obssessed w/the subj. of death)...I've decided to write another poem. (This...by far has got to be the best one I've written on the subject).



Death & Dying:



Death?such a scary fate & reality

And a hard way to accept.



We wish for our loved ones to be with us forever

But we know that cannot be.



We sometimes think life is unfair,

Yet it?s a lesson we have to learn.



It comes unexpectedly; we hardly notice it?s there,

Some people think it?s nothing, they really don?t care.



Yet once it happens, we can?t stop it,

The realization, the shock, the news?is just too much to bear.



We?re filled with a sense of emptiness & grief,

Like a stab through the heart, like our lives are incomplete.



Yet through the grief & despair comes a ray of hope

A hope to see them again, someday.



Death is like parting, but it won?t be forever

So don?t feel down & keep grieving.



Instead, remember them for all the good they?ve done,

How they impacted your lives.



Memories are your partner now; they?ll never die,

And even though they?re not with us physically, but in spirit?



There?s always a special place for them in our hearts.

[Shirotatsu]

(By the way, double posting doesn't matter anymore. This board is way too slow to reasonably follow that rule all the time.)

Now I must tell you that it is quite an effort; I praise your work. Unfortunately, it is but an imitation of a villanelle, and not a fully developed villanelle. If anything, I can call it a semi-villanelle. There's a reason the villanelle fascinates people - it's quite difficult to create. Not only is there the matter of rhyming lines 1-3-4-6-7-9-10-12-13-15-16-18-19, and 2-5-8-11-14-17, but there's also the matter of making sure the repetition of lines 1 and 3 as the ending of each stanza creates a certain feeling unique to each stanza. Here are the first two stanzas of your poem:

How great is a father's care
One that shows compassion and concern for their child
Trying his best to always be there

A father tries to comfort their child when filled with despair
To show how much they love them
How great is a father's care

One of the reasons it's hard is that there are only two rhymes per villanelle, which is set up in the first stanza. That means that, according to your first stanza, the two rhymes you wished to use were the sounds "air" and "aild," the second being fairly unwieldy in poetry. Yes, "care" rhymes with "there" rhymes with "despair" and rhymes with "care," again, but "child" does not rhyme with "them." In comparison, here are the first two stanzas of my poem:

Through thee, thou Muse Calliope,
Yes, along with the great Vergils and Homers, your media,
We men have composed through aweful poesy.

Often, you know, modern men cannot see
The beauty and wonder made in such artistic phenomena
Through thee, thou Muse Calliope.

In mine, I decided to use the rhymes "ee" and "a." "Calliope" rhymes with "poesy" rhymes with "see" and rhymes with "Calliope," again, as well as "media" rhyming with "phenomena." In comparison again is Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." In this poem, the rhymes are night-light-right-bright-flight-sight-height. The second line of each stanza ends in the same sound as well: day-they-bay-way-gay-pray.

Since there are nineteen lines in villanelle, the rhyme scheme should go like this:
ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABAA.

So as an example (I'm just rewriting it):
How great is a father's care
One that shows compassion and concern for his child
Trying his best to always be there

A father tries when they're filled with despair
To show them his love with a few words most mild;
How great is a father's care.

At best, perhaps, you've copied the style, but haven't nailed it. It's up to you whether to revise it so that it works, or to keep and I don't know what you'd call it. Still, unlike mine, it conveys an emotion, something much more valuable than talk of Calliope. Depending on what way you understand the words in my poem, you can discover either a hatred for poetry or my love for it - but you can figure where I might have implied such a thing on your own.