"Technical mastery should not astound— / The sense must seem an echo to the sound"

John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason is my favorite poetry reference book -- and not just as a light collection of self-describing forms, for he also illuminates forms of rhetoric and the subtleties of metrical variation. But the self-describing forms would be enough. This one blows me away, every read:

This form with two refrains in parallel?
(Just watch the opening and the third line.)
The repetitions build the villanelle.

The subject thus established, it can swell
Across the poet-architect's design:
This form with two refrains in parallel

Must never make them jingle like a bell,
Tuneful but empty, boring and benign;
The repetitions build the villanelle

By moving out beyond the tercet's cell
(Though having two lone rhyme-sounds can confine
This form). With two refrains in parallel

A poem can find its way into a hell
Of ingenuity to redesign
The repetitions. Build the villanelle

Till it has told the tale it has to tell;
Then two refrains will finally intertwine.
This form with two refrains in parallel
The repetitions build: The Villanelle.

Hollander doesn't manage this level of practical, intelligent advice in every example. But there's many enough bright with insight and delight.

(Especially when compared with The Desolation Poems.)

---L.

"Technical mastery should not astound— / The sense must seem an echo to the sound"

John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason is my favorite poetry reference book -- and not just as a light collection of self-describing forms, for he also illuminates forms of rhetoric and the subtleties of metrical variation. But the self-describing forms would be enough. This one blows me away, every read:

This form with two refrains in parallel?
(Just watch the opening and the third line.)
The repetitions build the villanelle.

The subject thus established, it can swell
Across the poet-architect's design:
This form with two refrains in parallel

Must never make them jingle like a bell,
Tuneful but empty, boring and benign;
The repetitions build the villanelle

By moving out beyond the tercet's cell
(Though having two lone rhyme-sounds can confine
This form). With two refrains in parallel

A poem can find its way into a hell
Of ingenuity to redesign
The repetitions. Build the villanelle

Till it has told the tale it has to tell;
Then two refrains will finally intertwine.
This form with two refrains in parallel
The repetitions build: The Villanelle.

Hollander doesn't manage this level of practical, intelligent advice in every example. But there's many enough bright with insight and delight.

(Especially when compared with The Desolation Poems.)

---L.