Tag: villanelle

Our Lucky Outpost

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Sarah Grace Tuttle, Here. Thank you, Sarah, for hosting! Be sure to stop by to see what she has for us this week.

I was browsing in a book store today and saw a book I already own by Bill Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” I had used this book in a previous post on supernovae HERE. I sat with a coffee and read a chapter entitled “Lonely Planet,” that begins:

"It isn't easy being an organism. In the whole universe, as far as we yet know, there is only one place, an inconspicuous outpost of the Milky Way called Earth, that will sustain you, and even it can be pretty grudging." Bill Bryson p. 239

Lucky circumstances make it possible for us to be alive and thrive on Earth. Importantly, we are just the right location from the sun. Any closer, we’d burn up. Any farther we’d freeze.

Earth also has the right elements, such as oxygen, sodium, potassium, iron, and many others that we need to survive.

Our molten liquid interior apparently is a big plus. First, it helped produce the gasses in our precious atmosphere and it creates a magnetic field that protects us from cosmic radiation.

Our large moon, a quarter of the diameter compared to Earth, in it’s close proximity keeps Earth from “wobbling like a top.”

The perfection we see all around us in nature is the result of all the above fortunate happenings.

I have been writing a series of Villanelles to become more familiar with the form. So here’s one inspired by Bill Bryson and Planet Earth. 

A PERFECT PLACE

Earth has been perfect place,
not too cold, not too hot,
because of where we spin in space.

Mars next door is a frozen waste,
and Venus is a fiery dot,
but Earth became a perfect place.

It's possible we could be outpaced
by "others" who gave life a shot
outside this place we spin in space,  

but so far we haven't found a trace
of oxygen in a temperate spot,
in another leafy perfect place. 

Celebrate! Embrace!
Luckier to be alive than not,
to think and feel and spin in space.

Oh, we could use a brilliant plot,
a failsafe way to save the race.
The Earth has been a perfect place,
because of where we spin in space. 

© Janice Scully 2022

The planet Venus

Thank you Sarah for hosting. Have a great weekend everyone.

Haunted Villanelle

Welcome to Poetry Friday this week hosted from Haiti at There is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town. This blog always has something interesting and thought provoking from outside America’s borders in Haiti.

Like many of you reading this, I’m home and trying to keep busy, keep up with friends and family and write poems. With the tension and the news as it is, I need to divert myself, though I am hopeful positive change will happen. I am very worried about the essential workers and patients in hospitals. This week I returned to my brother’s letters from Vietnam and revising poems inspired by them.

Although I can’t travel now, I have always loved the thrill of different places. Right now I’d be happy with a trip to nearby New York to see my son, but that won’t be anytime soon.

So in lieu of a vacation, I will share a villanelle I wrote about a vacation, a haunted one. It was inspired by the Berenstain Bears books that I grew fond of because my two boys and my husband had fun reading them. What we used to find hilarious was how clueless the father bear was, always getting himself into trouble. Below was one of our favorite books, THE BIG HONEY HUNT. Another one I remember involved father renting a rickety old vacation house with danger around every corner.

The Big Honey Hunt by Stanley and Janice Berenstain, a warn copy, is still on my shelf.

When I wrote the below villanelle, I had the Dad illustrated above in mind. This form proved challenging, especially the rhyme sequence, telling a story, and maintaining tension with repeating lines. If you have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know. 

OUR HAUNTED HOUSE VACATION




Something lives in this house-
crashing and thumping underneath.
Dad says it’s a mouse.


It doesn’t sound like a little mouse
seeking shelter from this craggy heath.
Something big lives in this house!


If it hears us, it might arouse
and flash it’s slimy teeth—
But Dad says it’s a mouse.


Could it be the owner’s spouse,
dead and here bequeathed?
Is a ghost in this house? 


With a bucket we could douse
a ghost. Make it howl and seethe—
but Dad says it’s a mouse.


“Children,” says Dad. “Don’t grouse!
Go pick daisies. Make a wreath."
There's something in this house.
Dad says it's a mouse. 


© Janice Scully 2020

I hope you enjoyed a trip to the heath this Friday.

One of the most popular villanelles ever written was ONE ART by Elizabeth Bishop. It’s for an adult audience and is well worth reading and rereading.

What is a villanelle? It includes five tercets followed by a quatrain. Lines 1 and 3 take turns repeating as the third line of the subsequent stanzas. Then those lines together form the final couplet. The rhyme sequence is ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA.

Have a good weekend. Thanks for stopping.

Do you want to know more about Poetry Friday? Find out about it here.