In January, I will explore the style of the Villanelle. This form of poetry has a lot of rules. I am normally a rule-breaker, so I take up the challenge of pirouetting across this restrictive dance floor with a degree of trepidation. Villanelle # 1 I will call Toast to A New Year.
My first love is poetry. I played with rhythms as a child as a favorite toy, writing line after line and verse upon verse down in a notebook my mama gave me. The words became undecipherable squiggly lines dancing across the page. I remember sitting on my Uncle Harvey’s porch, making up poems only I could read. I learned to write real letters after I started school. That’s when my adventure with poetry started. I found myself in a dance with a fickle dancer. As soon as I got the steps right, the beat changed, and the moves danced to a different tune confused me. COVID-19 and retirement have given me the gift of time to explore, study, and capture the essence of poetry, making all its different moved on the page.
The rules I followed writing Villanelle # 1
The rules for creating a Villanelle are simple and straight forward. This style of poetry must have 19 lines and five stanzas. The closing stanza has four lines. Also, line 1 gets repeated in lines 6, 12, and 18. Thus, line 3 gets repeated in lines 9, 15, and 19. There are so many rules and so little time.
Toast to a New Year
Because 2020 brought us nothing but heartache and fear
With a stalking virus to make us all feel like prey
Still, all humanity joins in chorus to usher in a new year.
All of us aboard this twisting, spinning, gyrating sphere
Wrestle against being tossed into a dark, dreadful doomsday
Because 2020 brought us nothing but heartache and fear
The future is fogy and the path littered and unclear
With fancy men in smug suits in comic disarray
Still, all humanity joins in chorus to usher in a new year
Whispers of New Normal and a frightening final frontier
Filled with fickle fools volunteering to lead the way
Because 2020 brought us nothing but heartache and fear
A sign in the sky, a star of promise for all who live here
Midnight brings us to the brink of a brighter day
Still, all humanity joins in chorus to usher in a new year
Across the globe we’ll raise a glass and cheer
Least Auld Lang Syne become a cliche
Because 2020 brought us nothing but heartache and fear
Still, all humanity joins in chorus to usher in a new year
Who is Molly Shea?
Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh. To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.
Be sure to follow Molly on Twitter!