I noticed there’s been some recent activity on a post I wrote eight years ago about villanelle poetry. I usually cringe looking over some of my older writings here, but that one I’m kinda proud of – including the messy stab I took at writing my own example to demonstrate the structure. I knew I couldn’t be very serious about it, especially since I offered it after a master’s example.
Not sure why traffic has picked up on that page, but I hope readers found it useful. It reminded me of a more serious poem I wrote around that time. In the non-poetry text of that post, I made some astronomy references that brought to mind my free verse poem, “Your Constellation,” which shares the language I used to describe the theme of obsession and unrequited longing. While it’s a more serious attempt at poetry, it of course pales next to Plath’s villanelle, which I’m sure I was unconsciously channeling.
I wish I knew if I wrote the poem before or after that post… It had to have been written somewhere between 2014 and 2017 – I can’t narrow it down more than that, though I think 2016-2017 might be more accurate. Fortunately, since I took poetry back up a year ago, I’ve been much better about marking the dates.
I wonder what would happen if I challenged myself to write several more villanelles until April – maybe once a week? It would be cool as fuck to actually write a decent one. I might start with rearranging the one below into that style.
YOUR CONSTELLATION
blinking bursting light
comes across the void in colors
breaching boundaries without sound
in blue, red, green, and white
and all the black
an empty stretching spill of
negative space comprising my life
but he blinks through
shining, carving happy scars
of energy
into the monstrous dark
it’s a secret, all this power
all this love is mystery
beaming binary code
not even I get to know
the reach, the feel, the formless touch
missing so much
feeling only misdirection
missing you and
mourning with nomadic comets and
failing rockets
falling away from the brilliance
of all those billion burning stars
my lens corrects in his direction
twitching, twinging little heart
descend forever
into the limitless dark
BLOG OF RHIANNIMATOR 