Villanelle Poem – I Walked Barefoot on the Smooth Sand

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This is my first attempt to write a Villanelle Poem

I walked barefoot on the smooth sand

A sweet girl showed me a tiny crab she found

I was amazed by the lovely creatures on the beach

~

The waves gently filed in from the ocean

Then receded back to the water leaving no trace

I walked barefoot on the smooth sand

~

The sunbathers had dark glasses on their faces

Their pets were leashed pacing back and forth

I was amazed by the lovely creatures on the beach

~

The salty air caressed my face and warmed my nose

Took a deep breath and filled my lungs with salt

I walked barefoot on the smooth sand

~

The seagulls flapped their wings with squawking voice

Gliding in the air in search of appetizing gulp

I was amazed by the lovely creatures on the beach

~

Seaweeds were carried ashore by rise of tide

They preferred to stay and made a new home

I walked barefoot on the smooth sand

And was amazed by the lovely creatures on the beach

~     ~     ~

Teresa Barker inspired me to write a Pantoum Poem. A few days ago, she  challenged me to write another Poetry Form – Villanelle.  Thank you, Teresa!!

The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem’s two concluding lines.

Strange as it may seem for a poem with such a rigid rhyme scheme, the villanelle did not start off as a fixed form. During the Renaissance, the villanella and villancico (from the Italian villano, or peasant) were Italian and Spanish dance-songs. French poets who called their poems “villanelle” did not follow any specific schemes, rhymes, or refrains. Rather, the title implied that, like the Italian and Spanish dance-songs, their poems spoke of simple, often pastoral or rustic themes.
While some scholars believe that the form as we know it today has been in existence since the sixteenth century, others argue that only one Renaissance poem was ever written in that manner—Jean Passerat’s “Villanelle,” or “J’ay perdu ma tourterelle”—and that it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that the villanelle was defined as a fixed form by French poet Théodore de Banville.

For more description and examples from other poets who wrote Villanelle, please refer to this link: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/villanelle-poetic-form

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Daily Prompt: Trace

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48 comments

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