The popularity of the villanelle was evident from the number of entries submitted for Writing Magazine’s competition for poems in that delightful medieval form. They arrived in a vast array of subject matter, with poems of love and hate, nostalgia and fear, the natural world and cyberspace, weight and levity. All had one thing in common. Whether they worked well or missed the mark, every entry had clearly been crafted with thought and care, and they provided a fascinating read.
The most common theme was the meta poem, with around 15% of the entries dealing with the topic of writing a villanelle, with all its joys and pitfalls. The perfect rhymes with spell, well and hell appeared in most of the pieces. Of course, there’s no way of knowing that what seems like an original idea will feature so often, but the preponderance of villanelle-based villanelles was uncanny.
