A parent keen on villanelles has offered a prize of a Fortnum & Mason Easter Basket for the best one produced by an Emanuel family by Wednesday 22nd April, on the subject of ‘Being at Home’.
A villanelle is a sixteenth century Italian poetic form written in five three-line stanzas and one four-line stanza. The first line of the first stanza is used as a refrain to end the second and fourth stanzas, and the last line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. These two refrain lines follow each other to become the penultimate and final lines of the poem.
The competition will be judged by the English Department, and submissions will be shared in the annual magazine and newsletter. Please send your entry by Wednesday 22nd April at 3pm to the Head of English: Sophie.Routledge@emanuel.org.uk
Here are some examples of Villanelles:
Kitchen Villanelle
by Stephen Fry
How rare it is when things go right
When days go by without a slip
And don’t go wrong, as well they might.
The smallest triumphs cause delight –
The kitchen’s clean, the taps don’t drip,
How rare it is when things go right.
Your ice cream freezes overnight,
Your jellies set, your pancakes flip
And don’t go wrong, as well they might.
When life’s against you, and you fight
To keep a stiffer upper lip.
How rare it is when things go right,
The oven works, the gas rings light,
Gravies thicken, potatoes chip,
And don’t go wrong as well they might.
Such pleasures don’t endure, so bite
The grapes of fortune to the pip,
How rare it is when things go right
And don’t go wrong as well they might.
A Reading
By Wendy Cope
Everybody in this room is bored.
The poems drag, the voice and gestures irk.
He can’t be interrupted or ignored.
Poor fools, we came here of our own accord,
And some of us have paid to hear this jerk.
Everybody in this room is bored.
The silent cry goes up, “How long, O Lord?”
But nobody will scream or go berserk.
He won’t be interrupted or ignored,
Or hit by eggs, or savaged by a horde
Of desperate people maddened by his work.
Everybody in this room is bored,
Except the poet. We are his reward,
Pretending to indulge his every quirk.
He won’t be interrupted or ignored.
At last it’s over. How we all applaud!
The poet thanks us with a modest smirk.
Everybody in the room was bored.
He wasn’t interrupted or ignored.
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster;
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
A Villanelle for Hugo Williams
by Wendy Cope
What can I say? I’d like to be polite
But have you ever seen a villanelle?
You ask me “Have I got the rhyme-scheme right?”
Is that a joke? You’re not a neophyte
Or some green-inker who can barely spell.
What can I say? I like to be polite.
No, not exactly, Hugo. No, not quite.
I trust this news won’t plunge you into hell:
Your rhyme-scheme is some miles from being right.
What’s going on? I know you’re very bright.
You’ve won awards. You write supremely well.
What can I say? I like to be polite
And this is true: your books are a delight,
In prose, free verse and letters you excel.
You want my help with getting rhyme-schemes right.
You seem dead keen to master them, despite
Your puzzling inability to tell
Which bit goes where. These lines, if not polite,
Will be of use, I hope. The rhyme-scheme’s right.