Villanelle -- Writing to a Specific Form

Most of you have probably never heard of a villanelle. It is a 19-line poem composed of five tercets and a concluding quatrain. It is a rhymed poem with only two rhymes and two lines that repeat alternately throughout the poem. Sound intimidating? I assure you, it is.

 I know that the bulk of you reading this are never going to write a villanelle, or even poetry for that matter. I am just using this as an example for how your writing -- or anything else creative you do -- can actually be enhanced by having to work within  rigid structure once in a while.

Back in my poetry days I was faced with writing one (ultimately several) and I was a bit taken aback. How was I going to do this?

Having to write to a prescribed form is always difficult. You must take your creative genius, which is vast and wild, and cram a bunch of  into a little box that it doesn't seem to fit inside. It is kind of like learning to pack a suitcase with a maximum of stuff -- you have to learn a new way to fit everything together.

I struggled a lot with this. First of all was coming up with a topic. So I thought about my favorite things. I love rocks and once wanted to be a geologist. So I took that as my subject. Two rhymes only is tricky because you want to choose rhymes that will give you a lot to choose from if you can. So "rocks" was obvious for one and "stones" worked for the other.

This being settled upon I took a sheet of notebook paper and laid out the rhyme scheme I needed to follow:

A1
B
A2

A
B
A1

A
B
A2

and so forth. This helped a great deal -- like having a road map to where I was heading. It turned out that once I created the first tercet I realized that I had finished a good share of the poem because of the repeating lines.

I wriggled uncomfortably and twisted and turned many a word to get the lines just right. At times I felt like I was sweating blood. In the end I was amazed at what I had before me on the paper. It was far better than what I had hoped for.

Mother Ship (a Villanelle)

Here on our great starship of stones,

We oft forget the importance of rocks,

These are the mother earth’s skeletal bones.

The desert wind of the Sahara moans,

Blowing sands that scour pyramid blocks,

Here on our great starship of stones.

Boulders huddled like ancient, hunchbacked crones,

Gathered for one of their gossipy talks,

These are the mother earth’s skeletal bones.

Elegant towers of wind-carved sandstones,

That rise above shepherds tending their flocks,

Here on our great starship of stones.

Down charming streets paved with smooth cobblestones,

Up lichen-covered stairway walks,

These are the mother earth’s skeletal bones.

From the gold and lapis on royal thrones,

To pebbles lining the gullets of hens and cocks,

Here on our great starship of stones –

These are the mother earth’s skeletal bones.

This was my first time writing a villanelle. I entered it into the contest and won first place. When it was read out loud to the members of the Poetry Society of Colorado at the annual awards luncheon there was an audible "wow!" at the end. It made of the struggle worth it. 

By having to follow a tight framework I had had to amp up my creativity to a new level. I had to dig deeper, reach further. I found there the writer I was working to be, the writer I wanted to be. 

Gems and jewels are made from high amounts of heat and pressure. So don't be afraid  of the pressure and constraint. It is good for the writer's soul -- and you never know when you will strike gold.

Udderly Amoosing

Trying to write to a specific topic can be very difficult and challenging. It requires  some serious

lateral thinking. The example that comes to mind is from back when I was writing a lot of poetry and I was faced with writing a love poem. This was a baffling topic for me since I am not exactly a hearts and flowers kind of gal.

Each year the Poetry Society of Colorado would have their annual contests for members. There were twenty or so contests and I became determined to enter every one every year. Unfortunately for me there was a category for writing a love poem. I wracked my brain for days. Nothing was coming to me. I reread the description. ANY kind of love. Hmmmmm. I could work with ANY. What kinds of love were there? I didn't have to stick with the gushy, gooey romantic stuff that is ordinarily associated with a love poem.

So what was love to me? What examples of love did I note around me? Mother and child. Brother and sister. Father and tools. Humans and pets. My stepmother and housecleaning. I was getting closer. Having opened up alternate definitions of love was having an effect on me. From out the the blue I remember seeing a news story of a moose somewhere back east that had fallen in love with a cow.

Those gears in my head started grinding to loudly that the neighbors were complaining. I didn't need some saccharine tome to love. No indeed. I could go with my true strength in life -- humor! So I set to work. Boy, was this gonna be good. And it was. The resulting poem took second place in the contest.
Check it out here:

Opposite Attractions

©2000 by Laurie Kay Olson

The course of true love makes no excuse –

As was the case with a certain moose.

Though I can’t really tell you how,

He fell in love with a Jersey cow.

In the field where she placidly chewed her cud

He stood as though rooted in ankle-deep mud.

The townspeople tried to remove him in vain.

The harder they tried the more it was plain.

He watched his true love with adoring eyes

While she regarded him with mild surprise.

I’ve heard that those two are standing there yet,

As much in love as two species can get.

The moral of this story is simple and sweet –

Love may be found wherever two hearts can meet.

It is short, to the point, humorous and definitely falls into the category of ANY kind of love. I learned that I can write to just about any topic I'm given as long as I keep my mind wide open to the possibilities and don't just say "Oh, I can't do that!" The truth is that yes, I can. If I am really saying I can't I need to be honest with myself and say "This topic is so intimidating that I choose not to." 

Are there topics that I would choose not to write on? Well, certainly there are. I'm not into porn, Goth, punk, heavy metal and so on. I'm not taking some moral stance, I just don't have the background to go there -- not even with lateral thinking.

So before thinking that you can't write about something, take a small step to the right or left and take a look at the topic again. That may be all you need to see the subject in a different way and give you the inspiration to write something wonderful.

Failure: The Path To Success

When you are a writer you have to get used to failure -- lots of failure. But that's a good thing. The path to success is lined with failure. If you haven't failed you aren't really trying.

Few writers just walk onto life's stage with an agent, a contract, and a publisher. We usually spend years honing our craft and collect stacks of rejection slips for short stories, articles, and essays. Some of us get a degree in English, journalism, or creative writing, while others of us get our education in the school of hard knocks. I have seen many an educated writer start waving their degree in frustration when their writing expectations aren't met when they meet the real world.

Being academically correct in your writing doesn't guarantee a thing in the real world of writing. At the other end of the spectrum is the writer who is functionally illiterate but thinks having a great idea and getting it on paper is enough.

Whichever path you are on as a writer you have to put in the work, accept your failures and learn from them. Learn the difference between constructive and non-constructive criticism and discover for yourself when to accept and make use of the criticism and when to stay your course.

Back in the days when all manuscripts were sent by snail mail I received a rejection slip from Redbook magazine that I still have to this day. It was one of those form notes that publications sent out by the millions to writers. I kept it because someone had taken the time to add a handwritten scrawl at the bottom of how much they liked my story, though it still needed work, it just wasn't right for their magazine. It was one of those failures that contained just enough victory to give me hope.

When I was in junior high I had an English teacher who was extremely supportive of my writing dreams. In high school I had a creative writing teacher who said that I was a derivative hack who would never amount to anything as a writer. My father hated my writing, sure that I was just out to try to become famous and would shun dealing with the real world in favor of the dream. My stepmother went through my scribblings (without permission) while I was away at college and was sure I was deluding myself because my stories never seemed to have endings. A psychic told me that I would never write except to please myself, indicating that I would never be a successful, paid writer.

I had to shut down all of the voices that were out there encouraging me to fail. I had to follow what I knew was right for me, no matter what. I wrote piles and piles of utter garbage. It took a long time, but my writing started getting better, more original, and cleaner. Every time I got an idea I wrote it down. Every time I stopped writing a story, with or without an ending, I started another one.

There is that old cliche out there that says "failure is not an option." While that makes a great movie tag line, it doesn't wash for most of what we face in life. Failures create the steps we need to climb to move upward.

Failure helps us know when to make changes to make something better.  Failures can tell us when to let go of one story or poem and move on to the next. Sometimes all it tells us is to try again.

Years ago I wrote a poem comparing myself to a butterfly, having shut myself into a protective cocoon of my own making and now choosing to break out and flex my wings. It was short and pithy and good. So I sent it into a contest. It did not win. Not only did it not win, a note from the judge was scrawled on it telling me how awful the poem was. The poem was too short, the lines were too short, it was boring and so forth.  I took everything the judge said into consideration and ultimately decided that the judge was wrong. A year or two later I entered the poem into a contest again. This time I won first place.

Another time I sent a poem to a contest that told the tale of the first time my mother tried to show me a rainbow. I couldn't see it. I kept looking for a ribbon tied in a bow somewhere up in the sky. It just didn't take. The judge in this case wrote a note that the total poem was implausible and that of course a child would be able to see a rainbow.

My point here is that the person reading your work is just as prone to failure as you are. Just because they are in some elevated position over you does not necessarily mean squat, be it judge or editor. Sometimes they get it wrong too. That includes with your work.

When something is not performing I set it aside sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few years. When I take it out again I see it with fresh eyes and can make more critical changes with a bit of perspective. Some things go back in the "vault" while others get reworked and are sent out into the world again.

"Failure" can encompass a world of things that aren't so personal either. I sent a poem in to Poetry.com for a "contest." They told me I won some level of prize for. Then they wanted me to buy the book to see my work. I realized that this failure was learning that the site was not truly legit. This was especially shown to be the case when they kept sending me emails trying to get me to buy other stuff. Most notably was them trying to get me to purchase a lovely copy of my poem mounted on some sort of plaque that I would be able to display to the world. This may have worked if I had only had the one poem in me. Instead I have written over 1,000 poems, many of which have won legitimate cash prizes. So this failure was just a learning process to never, ever deal with them again.

So, while I am still on my journey to be able to support myself full time as a writer, I have climbed on top of a considerable pile of failures to be able to reach higher than I could before.

Verses vs. Verses

I write poetry. A LOT of poetry. To date I have written more than 1,000 poems and have published

four poetry books for Kindle on Amazon.com. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they do not sell. Very few people read poetry and many people write it. It is a strange juxtaposition, but there you have it.

There is a bit of conflict in the world of poetry over whether it is better to write free verse or standard poetic forms. Since I write it all, I have an opinion on this. I don't get the argument. Write what works for you.

Here are some guidelines based on my personal experience and preferences:

• I hate long poems. They tend to wander about and accomplish little, leaving me to wish that I could get that part of my life back. I don't care if you are the next Longfellow or Tennyson, edit the hell out of your work. They lived in a time when long poems were far more acceptable. Their poetry was not in competition with television, video games, and the Internet. Be concise and direct.

• I love free verse. For many years that is all I wrote. It was my basic training in writing poetry-- like calisthenics to build my writing muscles. After I won a poetry contest with a free verse poem I started down a poetry rabbit hole that took me in diverse directions.

• I love standard poetry forms. Obviously I didn't start out that way. After I won that first contest I joined the Poetry Society of Colorado. Every year they sponsored a large number of contests on a variety of subjects and/or forms. This caused me to challenge myself to start writing more of the forms I knew and learn those that I did not.

• Forcing myself out of my comfort zone to work in unfamiliar ways and pushing to write them well enough to win contests was some of the best writing training I could have found -- not just for poetry but for everything. I learned to say what I meant concisely, to fit size limitations and to stay completely on topic. I learned to edit heavily. I learned that, given enough time and effort, I could write anything.

• I discovered new things about myself through writing poetry this way -- that I have a talent for writing cowboy poetry, that the best poem I ever wrote was in a very difficult form so facing the difficult engendered excellence, and that I am WAY more competitive than I ever thought I was.

• I love words. I love the way they fit together and the way they can ebb and flow. I love the way I can use them to reach into the hearts souls of the people around me. Learn to play with them fitting and refitting them. Make lists of words that go together. Make a list of colors and remember to reach as far as you can and add amber and amethyst and the like to your list.

• Don't be obtuse. Poetry is not meant to be vague and loaded with mysterious meanings that would take a college professor to interpret. Much of the poetry that seems that way was written at different times in history when meanings and metaphors differed from what we know today.

• Push yourself to try new things. Dabble in Haiku. Play with a Limerick. Try a Senyru, a Tanka, or a Sonnet. 

• Learn to recognize when you are over-writing. You can't put in every detail, but you can brig the reader to the point where they will fill in the details tor themselves. It is okay if they fill it in wrong. It is their half of the reader/writer partnership. I wrote a poem (free verse)  about my father leaving me when I was a child and likening the shock to losing my innocence. The finished poem sounds like it is about being raped. I have never changed a word. It works as is. I learned that when I was having trouble writing I was usually over writing. I would step back, find the core of the subject, and start again. The results were usually spot on. This works with prose as well.

• Have passion for what you are writing.

• Never give up. Never give in.

Oh, and as to whether you should write free verse or traditional forms, it doesn't matter. Just do what works for you. And keep an open mind about trying new things. It will make you a better writer.

U -- Uncensored

A lot of writer's talk about learning to turn off their internal editors so that they can write freely

without that voice in their heads telling them to go back and rewrite that last sentence, or to rethink that last paragraph. The internal editor interrupts the flow of the proper act of writing.

Just as important as turning off the internal editor is turning off the internal censor. This is the voice that stops you in your tracks by reminding you that someone out there may judge you unfairly by what you have written. It is like being shy about your characters having sex or having to pee in the woods. The censor is the voice that creates unnecessary embarrassment.

This doesn't mean that you have to be explicit about every little thing. That can end up being more tedious than offensive, and is a far more heinous crime in the world of literature. Tedium is tolerated by very few people.

You can lead people up to the sex, give them a glimpse, and then discreetly close the door. When they need to pee in the woods they can step behind a tree.

The point is that we all need to pee in the woods once in while. So incorporate it into your story. Let the urine flow. Let it knock the bark off the tree if need be. Let the reader hear the sound of it hitting the scrub brush. Let this identify the zip up. It will not only make your characters more real, but your story will be richer overall. This is the sort of detail of which life is made.

Don't worry about what mom and dad may think of the subject. Neither of them is the writer. They'll learn to live with it. If not, well, then that's their problem.

I do give my inner censor a little more free rein when it comes to swearing. I will use it only when it is germane to the character. This is because I find that many people who use foul language regularly either have poor language skills or are trying to impress or shock the world with it (or both). So I save it for a character tag to fill out particular personalities.

The main place I have had to learn to silence the censor is when dealing with difficult emotions and things that poke around difficult memories for me. The scenes where I have to strip myself emotionally bare in front of the entire world and stand there unabashed in all of my inner nakedness are always the most difficult. I want to run and hide. The inner censor is hollering at me.

That is exactly when I need to stand my ground. That is when my writing really becomes real. That is when I fly.

Q -- Question Quandry

One of the hardest part of working as a journalist for me what shutting off my parents in my head telling me not to be asking questions and "prying" into other people's lives. When you are a journalist you need to be nosy and you need to ask those questions that aren't supposed to be asked if you are being polite.

Learning to ask the questions took some time. I did not study a lot of journalism in school,, so I didn't come by it under the tutelage of others. While I have been writing for most of my life, I wasn't a journalist and that hadn't really ever been a part of the plan. Through a series of events I ended up working at a local newspaper in the marketing department. After several months I was going to be laid off and got picked up by the editorial department instead as the calendar editor instead. This meant that I put together the daily calendar of events to be published each day.

The newspaper is one that caters largely to the students of the University of Colorado and so during

Alberta Falls by Jonathan Machen

the summer months they would lay off much of the staff and reduce to publishing just twice a week. I spent much of my time working alone in the bull pen with stacks of press releases. I noticed one press release about the show of a local artist. He was my neighbor. I took all the courage I could muster and went into the office of the editor-in-chief and asked if I could review the show for the paper. Astoundingly, he agreed.

Suddenly I was working as a part-time freelance journalist. Fortunately my first few victims were people I knew, so they were patient with my stumbling through some of my questions. Also fortunately, I planned many of my questions ahead of time rather than trying to just "pants" it.

I found that I loved writing articles as much as fiction and poetry because I just truly love writing. The questions came. I learned that people really didn't mind them the way my parents had taught me they would. Perhaps I had taken them more seriously than I should have.

I also learned to ask for the opportunities I wanted, not just hoping that they would turn up. During this time the paper also needed columnists and I decided that I wanted to write a humor column. Once again I went to talk with the editor and he asked me to submit three samples of the column. Next thing I knew I was also a columnist.

Since I didn't have a regular beat with the newspaper I always had to ask the questions to get approval for each article I wrote. Some of these ended up being some of the most memorable moments of my life.

I was able to interview my old junior high school English teacher, Frank Reno, about his book on the historical King Arthur that he had spent years researching and writing. Not only had he been a favorite teacher, he had also been a huge mentor to me with my writing. I had spent many after-school hours in his classroom with him reading the stuff I was writing at home (and him trying not to die laughing over it). He always encouraged me to keep writing.

The most important question I got to ask him -- "Did you ever think that we would be here together again like this?" That is, him with the published book and me interviewing him about it for the paper. It was a very satisfying moment for both of us.