Villanelles, Repetition, and Rhyming

I have to agree with both Alex and Joe on their comments on the poetic format of a villanelle in that it is a very complex and yet beautiful form of poetry that can demonstrate true mastery of verse and rhyming. After learning more about them last class I must admit my respect for those who can write them as well as my own desire to take a crack at one as drastically increased. Without a doubt one of my all time favorite poems is Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night, and I have always been in awe in how well it uses repetition and rhyme to convey its strong message. Like Alex, I found the fact that villanelles need to focus on serious topics understandable, since the constant repetition in the poem would easily cause anything that is seemly unimportant to sound very child like. No, I must admit when we began to go more in dept on villanelles in class I always pictured them telling stories about something serious and worth obsessing over such as Dylan Thomas’s father’s “easy” death. Personally, I have to end my blog post by commenting on rhyming and saying that I agree with Joe that there is growing perception that rhyming poetry is an old and dying art. But in reality it doesn’t, rhyme is a great technique in poetry, one I am extremely fond of. That’s not to say I believe not rhyming is bad, but the truth is I feel sometimes that people view rhyming as childish, when with a little effort and work rhyming can give a poem a sense of strong focus, rhythm, and personal expression.