tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post7899085303897704064..comments2024-03-29T00:28:38.155+00:00Comments on Nigeness: Two VillanellesNigehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-25316999116417797182015-08-18T16:55:02.792+01:002015-08-18T16:55:02.792+01:00Told you I was a stickler. As you say Nige -"...Told you I was a stickler. As you say Nige -"its technical challenges are both demanding and liberating" but if one sidesteps them to that extent is one liberated? A moot point certainly.Guy Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02304053177188950094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-40276021412950690152015-08-18T10:10:52.656+01:002015-08-18T10:10:52.656+01:00Harsh, Guy! Is the discipline itself the whole poi...Harsh, Guy! Is the discipline itself the whole point? That would take us back to the vapid exercises of the 1890s, wouldn't it? I'd say the point is rather to transcend the form while - more or less - adhering to it, so that the reader can reach the end before realising Hey, this is a Villanelle! A few partial rhymes are fine by me, so long as the pattern - and the repetitions - are intact. Nigehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-2864515434396339192015-08-18T09:51:04.838+01:002015-08-18T09:51:04.838+01:00I much prefer the Bishop (and thanks for that Nige...I much prefer the Bishop (and thanks for that Nige) because it adheres better to the whole point and raison d’être of a villanelle – it’s discipline. Justice’s rhymes are just too loose. I loved weekend/deep end and I can take yellow/tell you and sallow/yellow but failure/yellow, milieu/yellow and colour/yellow are stretching a point too far. Guess I’m too much of a stickler. There’s a dichotomy in choosing to submit oneself to poetic form and then watering down its discipline so much that one has to ask why you chose the submission in the first place. The whole joy is the expectation of how the next rhyme will emerge. When its only about a quarter or an eighth rhyme, and a rhyme that only one’s awareness that the poem is a villanelle tells you is supposed to be a rhyme at all, one feels cheated or does not even notice that its occurred at all. The gesture towards the form is just too casual. Yeah, a right old stick in the mud eh?Guy Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02304053177188950094noreply@blogger.com