Italy Post #14

Dear Readers,
I've become addicted to writing villanelles. A villanelle is a very frustrating formal form of writing that actually originated in Italy (explanation for my obsession perhaps?) that doesn't really allow the poet to go anywhere. The movement of the poem is repeatedly stopped by the form of the poem itself - a turning in. The first and last lines of the first stanza are repeated numerous times throughout the poem, making it difficult for a progression of thought. One of my classmates described them as "utterly worthless". Yet, villanelles can be quite endearing, which is why I'm attracted to them; with modern poetry pushing its boundaries, the villanelle has been given a little room to grow. I'm also quite inspired by Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" (look it up if you don't know it!), which is a villanelle that has such passion and poignance in it that I felt inspired to write not one villanelle, but two. Tell me what you think of this one; I may be submitting the first one for our next assignment, which is to write in a classical form.

The Annunciation
Had you refused that fateful night
said No, that is not to my liking and gone
to sleep, would the world still be under the plight

of generations living and breathing with no light
nor hope in their lives, barren of promise
had you refused that fateful night?

Could it have been at the fright
of golden Gabriel that you refused
to submit, the world still under the plight

of Adam’s curse, the world made right
only with a sacrifice on your part, unless
you had refused that fateful night,

gone against a God who just might
have nailed your future into his plan
to save the world with his son’s own plight?

And could you resist the glorious sight
of a future wrapped in tinsel and misteltoe -
No, you couldn’t refuse that fateful night
to show a world about hardship and plight.