By Rachel Dickens

Each Monday in September a member of the Mum Poet Club will introduce to a form we might not be familiar with, to inspire us to have a go ourselves. First up Rachel Dickes @lollysnow shows us the villanelle. 

If you fancy sharing your villanelle attempt with us, use the hashtag #mumpoemprompts so we can find and share your work. 

The villanelle, thought to derive from Latin, means a simple, oral ballad or song of no fixed form. In Italian ‘Villano’ means peasant or farmhand and often the subjects were pastoral. After 1606 when Jean Passerat in France wrote ‘J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle’ about his turtledove, it was adopted and then it is believed to have been popularised by the English in the nineteenth century, as a fixed verse form, consisting of 19 lines, 5 tercets and 1 quatrain.

T.S. Eliot quoted that "to use very strict form is a help, because you concentrate on the technical difficulties of mastering the form, allow the content of the poem a more unconscious and freer release". James Joyce and W.H. Auden gave villanelle’s to their protagonists’ voices within their novels. Others to look up are: ‘Theodore Roetheke ‘The Waking’, ‘Elizabeth Bishop ‘One Art’, Dylan Thomas ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night’, Louise Bogan ‘Song for the Last Act’ and Sylvia Plath ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’.

This is a form that is great for anyone writing about obsession or being an outsider. Ripe for mum poets to pick and make it their own!

I recommend beginning with the last two lines. Write two lines that rhyme and ideally have roughly the same number of syllables. The kind of lines that stick in your head at 3am or a surprising rhyme that won’t go away – these are golden. Think about what you want to stress or repeat. When you have your two rhyming lines these will be your refrains. These lines are the ones most repeated within the poem.

Next, work on the rhyme scheme which goes: 1b2 ab1 ab2 ab1 ab2 ab12. The letters "a" and "b" alternate and indicate the two rhyme sounds. The numerals (1 and 2) indicate the refrain (line) 1 and refrain (line) 2, both of which rhyme (a). I think the easiest thing to do is write it out like this and then you can fill in your lines:

 1 (a)

b

2 (a)

a

b

1 (a)

a

b

2 (a)

a

b

1 (a)

a

b

1 (a)

2 (a)

Here you can see the first four tercets (3 lines) and the final quatrain (4 lines).

So, you already have your first rhyme from the two rhyming lines (refrains) you’ve already written, now you need a second rhyming scheme, my advice, choose rhymes have lots of other rhyming words. Fill in the other lines until you’re happy with it.

 The real beauty of the villanelle is that there is no established meter, so feel free to count syllables or simply don’t. The common rhythms (long and short stresses) that the villanelle uses are trimeter (3 feet [rise and fall]), tetrameter (4 feet) or pentameter (5 feet) but rules were made to be broken and many poets already have. It is not even essential to rhyme in every tercet and you can change your refrain slightly to alter the meaning as you go on, if you wish.

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Sylvia Plath