Ah, Shane. I'm so jealous.
You're fast on the draw.
People mock me.
They say I'm always skulking,
always out for the perfect kill --
incessantly clicking --
the obsessive-compulsive shutterbug.
But this is why.
This is what I love.
These accidental
sprezzatura-style photos
that can be captured
only by the Ready.
Contrary to how I find haiku and cinquains, villanelles are a personal nemesis. I want to conquer that form, and you're welcome to join me in the battle.
Perhaps the poem that brought fame to this form is the one authored by Dylan Thomas, titled "Do Not Go Gentle."
Here's another model villanelle called "One Art," written by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79).
The way I learned the form originally, entire lines had to be repeated. That's what Thomas does, magnificently. Bishop follows the form perhaps more loosely, working tightly with specific words and phrases to bring them around again and again in different hues.
Knot the cudgels. To the caves.