Villanelle
Rajiv Anand @WritersCafeThe villanelle has humble origins as a rustic Italian song, but over the past few centuries it has developed into a highly structured form of poetry.
A nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets (three-line stanzas) and a closing quatrain (four-line stanza), the villanelle is further constrained by a regular rhyming scheme and two refrains that are echoed in each stanza.
A classic example of a strict villanelle is Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night,” though the poem’s structure is so particular many poets choose to break its tight confines and compose near-villanelles, such as Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.”