Villanelle Philosophy

[milo]

The refrain (repetend) is your chorus -- songs with shitty choruses don't stay in people's heads, therefore they don't make money. Poets don't make money anyway, but the idea of being dismissed as pointless as soon as the poem is finished can be quite upsetting.

Refrains should be subtle. They're tying the poem together, not bludgeoning it into shape. Punctuation and enjambment are invaluable tools. Remember that in a villanelle, your repetends need to come together at the end and should provide a sense of satisfaction or conclusion. If you choose two lines that don't logically go together, you have failed before you began. If you choose two lines only because they go together, you may be in the same danger.

Learning the rules of any form is easy. Realising when to use a form and what to use it for can take years. Play. There is no substitute for silliness.

And bear in mind that just because a poem makes you laugh, there's no proof that the writer wasn't crying.

On the interesting point of refrains - If you write the perfect heroic couplet, you may also have the makings for a perfect villanelle . . .